Archive for October, 2008

The Federal Government is planning to introduce carbon emissions trading scheme in 2010, and Wayne Swan says “acting on climate change now will save Australia significant financial outlay in the future”.

Household are expected to payout about $7 per week more for gas and electricity.

Treasury modeling says the ETS would mean households pay about $5 per week more for power while gas would add $2 per week.

Did you know you can save those rising costs, which are nearly $400 more each year, simply by installing a solar hot water heater?

If you install a system now you won’t pay anything more than you are currently paying for hot water heating. Furthermore you don’t have to be concerned about the $5 per week price increase due to ETS, or the 5% to 8% annual increase which bites you every year from now forever.

Treasurer Wayne Swan conceded the cost would hit lower income families harder and said the Government would work to help all Australians in managing the cost. “The Government is of course committed to helping households adjust to the scheme by compensating them for the impact,” Mr Swan said.

No firm figure of assistance has yet to be given.

The scheme would mean carbon as a unit was given a value in the hope of reducing emissions. Mr Swan says Australia could reasonably expect to cut emissions by at least 60% by 2050 with little impact on the economy. The expected price is around $23 per tonne of C02

The Treasurer also said the modeling, which was completed in response to a report by Australia’s peak climate adviser Professor Ross Garnaut, showed a higher cost if Australia failed to act now.

Mr Swan said the alternative energy sector would grow by more than 3,000% if the scheme was introduced.

“Low emissions technologies and production processes will become more competitive and low emission goods will become more attractive to consumers,” he said.

The good news is that installing a solar hot water system frees you from most of the impact of a emissions trading scheme, and saves you over $10,000 over the life of the system.

The Brisbane City Council has made a great decision and scrapped the plumbing inspection fees in Brisbane. This is a further $108 off the price of solar hot water systems.

Naturally I cannot take credit for that happening. However in the meeting that was set up for all solar hot water plumbers in August, I asked whether it was not possible to waive the inspection fee. The answer back then was: “No way, this is a completely different section of council.” So it is really heartening that the Brisbane City Council is taking sustainability serious and is doing everything possible to make it accessible to Brisbane residents. And silently I can imagine that my question started the inner process.

And I also want to point out how helpful the plumbing section of council is. They are really accommodating in organising the inspections at convenient times.

So apart from the 20 pages that are necessary to get information to the various government departments for the rebates, the process is working quite well.

I have recently switched over to a virtual fax service so that we do not waste paper any more. We are handling most of it digitally now.

Imagine the announcement of this goal: 90% of Australian homes are going to have solar hot water.

Impossible? Israel has achieved its 90% solar hot water goal, Spain is well on the way. It did however take Israel almost 60 years. Not sure how far Spain got, as they only started in 2004 to make solar hot water mandatory.

What would that mean for Australia? Looking at the 10 biggest cities in Australia, there are approximately 3.7 million freestanding houses (source: 2006 Census). Currently less than 5% have solar hot water, so an additional 85% (3.145 million) solar hot water systems need to be installed. If we draw that out over 60 years, it is only 52,500 per year.

View Larger Map

Zoom into this map of Brisbane and have a look whether you can find any solar hot water systems. There are actually two pretty much in the center of the picture. Now imagine 90% of those homes with solar water heaters.

Are we achieving that now?

Here is an estimate of solar hot water sales, based on the registered REC’s since 2001:

2007 is the first year where we are coming close to the required number of solar hot water installations to catch up with Israel in 60 years!

So here is a better solar hot water goal:
90% of homes have solar hot water by 2018.

Australia needs to install 314,500 solar hot water systems per year. What does it take to achieve that?

• Higher rebates?
• Cheaper systems?
• More education about the benefits?
• Taking the hassle out?
• Making it “hot” to go solar?
• Banning electric hot water?

Probably a mix of all of those strategies. If you know of any more, let me know.

By the way, Queensland is the first Australian state that has banned electric hot water systems for all new homes and from 2010, replacements will also be disallowed (in gas reticulated areas). Gas systems are also allowed, so it is not purely a solar hot water goal, but it is a start.