Energy Prices cop a lot of flack

The price of energy is not valued in the same way as other costs of living. Rising energy prices have Australian consumers blaming utilities for everything, from unfairly increasing prices to not investing enough in renewable energy. It seems they can’t catch a break.

Connection Research’s recent report Interconnected Home 2011 reveals customers believe the number one priority for electricity retailers should be keeping prices affordable. But at the same time, nearly a quarter of customers believe the energy utilities’ investments are causing rising energy prices. They can’t do both.

Energy Networks Australia (ENA) CEO John Devereaux believes the key to repairing the somewhat battered image Australians have of their energy company is changing people’s attitudes. He points out that householders are happy pay for other comparable services, but think energy prices are too high.

“Given the focus on the size of electricity bills and the capacity for some households to cope with any increase, it is interesting to think about the services which most households now choose to access and pay for which were not available 15 years ago, including the Internet, mobile phones and pay television, which average in total around $150 per month, a sizeable portion of the average electricity bill.”

Consumers are comparatively happy to pay for internet and TV because they appreciate the value of these technologies more than electricity. Household access to electricity has been around for nearly a century now, so householders do not realise the difference it makes. Results from the Interconnected Home indicate only 21.7% believe they are getting value for money from their energy supplier. Australians need to change this attitude. It seems this change will happen slowly, with many continuing to blame the utilities for outages and price hikes, while ignoring the convenience that people take for granted.

Australia Falling Behind on ICT Sustainability

Australia performs poorly compared to many other countries when it comes to ICT Sustainability (often called “Green IT”). Australia’s overall ICT Sustainability Index (ITSx) is 52.8, compared to the global average of 54.3. Canada does best, on 60.3, followed by the United Kingdom on 58.3 and the USA on 52.8. Australia is ahead of only New Zealand, India and China of the countries surveyed.

The findings are contained in Fujitsu’s annual Global ICT Sustainability benchmarking report, researched by Connection Research. The benchmark is based on a survey of 1,000 international ICT departments conducted by Connection Research over May and June 2011, and since supplemented by further research and analysis. The survey quantifies an organisation’s ICT Sustainability attitudes, policies, practices and technologies, in each of five areas: Lifecycle and Procurement, End User Efficiencies, Enterprise and Data Centre, ICT as a Low Carbon Enabler, and Metrics.

Australia’s worst performance is in End User Efficiencies, where it is last of all the countries surveyed. This indicates that Australian ICT departments are comparatively poor at implementing such end user sustainability technologies and practices as PC power management, printer consolidation and end user training programs. It seems many of the “low hanging fruit” of Green IT have grown back.

An analysis by industry shows that Australia does comparatively well in Government and Professional Services, but worse than average in other industry sectors. Australia has a long way to go in ICT Sustainability.

Green and Gold goes Green

The Australian Rugby Union (ARU) website has announced on Wednesday that the Wallabies will “go green” for their World Cup campaign in New Zealand. What does this mean? It means they will try to offset their entire carbon footprint for the trip.

The campaign is officially called ‘Qantas Wallabies Go Green’, and is in partnership with long term naming rights partners Qantas and Lexus, as well as the Carbon Offset Program. Qantas will offset the flights to and from NZ, Lexus will offset all ground transportation, and the Carbon Trade Exchange will offset any other footprints that may appear. All offsets will be compliant with the Australian National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS). The ARU claims the Wallabies are the first Rugby World Cup team attempting to offset their campaign. ARU Managing Director and CEO John O’Neill says he hopes other teams will follow suit.

Perhaps they can make Rugby Union the first carbon-neutral sport on the planet.

Which raises the question: Just how big is sporting industry’s carbon footprint? News website France24.com worked out a few key figures to give an idea of just how energy hungry sporting is:

·         The Soccer World Cup in South Africa produced 2.5 million tons of C0₂.

·         15 million litres of water are used every year to produce artificial snow on the ski fields of France alone.

·         An estimated 880 tons of C0₂ was emitted by the racers in the 2010 Dakar Rally. This does not take into account assistance cars or helicopters.

·         A 40 hectare golf course requires up to 127,000m³ of water to keep its lawns healthy.

Efforts are being made by some sporting bodies to reduce their code’s carbon emissions. The 2012 London Olympics have created 45 hectares of wildlife habitat within Olympic Park to safeguard the wildlife against construction of the park (and to provide a picturesque setting for the games), and all of the food packaging at the games will be biodegradable. It was originally planned that 20% of the power generated for the games would come from renewable sources, but that has since dropped to 9%.

Sport is a big part of society, but its carbon footprint can’t be ignored forever. We will soon see all sporting codes join in as the Wallabies have, cutting down or offsetting carbon emissions wherever possible. It is just another aspect of our life that we are going to have to bring into the environmentally-conscious 21st century.

Australia – The Dumb Solar Country

Remember Bob Hawke’s idea that Australia would become known as the “clever country”? Can anyone really say that we have come close to living up to it? The mess we are making of solar energy is a good example. Consider a few simple facts: 

Fact: Australia has abundant capacity for solar energy. We’re a sunny country. The world leader in solar energy, Germany, gets only half as much energy from the same solar PV panel that we do in Australia. 

Fact: The recently elected conservative state governments in Australia’s two largest states, NSW and Victoria, have reduced incentives for households to install solar panels. Federal and state strategies to encourage Australians to install solar panels are a mishmash of conflicting and uncoordinated programs. 

Fact: Solar panels cost more in Australia than in Germany or the USA, where prices are dropping, despite Australia’s high dollar and low import tariffs. Prices in Australia are not falling. 

Fact: Even at these high prices, the cost of electricity from solar panels has now reached parity with the cost of electricity off the grid. That assumes a 25 year lifespan for a PV panel. 

Fact: Australia was once a world leader in the development of PV panels. Virtually all that expertise is now offshore, as are the manufacturing facilities. 

Add it all together and it’s a sad tale. If Australia had any sense we would be making massive use of solar power. As it is, solar is a miniscule proportion of what we’re getting from coal-fired power stations. The energy industry is wedded to old models that are scarcely affected by attempts at reregulation. 

Australia is missing the boat. We need a national solar strategy, coordinating incentives for consumers, manufacturers, researchers and energy companies.