Vics get energy relief

As a special measure, electricity companies have announced a one-off heat relief package for almost 50,000 Victorians who were most affected by the outages during the extreme heat on Sunday 28 January.

Customers who were off supply for three hours or more during that period will receive the one-off payment.

Customers receiving the heat relief payments should expect to be reimbursed directly by the network businesses by the end of February in the form of direct-mailed cheques.

The extreme heat drove significant increases in residential demand that resulted in outages on localised parts of the distribution networks.

While acknowledging the impact of the event of 28 January, in terms of overall reliability, Victorian customers experience the shortest average duration of unplanned outages in Australia while also paying about 18 per cent less (or $75 per year) in distribution network charges than the national average.

Customers who were off supply between three and 20 hours on 28 January will receive $80, while those between 20 and 30 hours and more than 30 hours will receive $120 and $180 respectively.

Did you suffer from power outages on 28 January? Is this compensation enough?

14 comments

Extreme heat ? I think it’s called summer ..

Let's be realistic.  You think the energy companies are not going to recoup a handout?  Maybe the Toothfairy will come to visit.

Both sides of Politics are guilty in Victoria Of not developing the gas beneath their feet.

 

Build coal fired power stations. When Australia had enough coal fired power stations, electricity was relatively cheap, reliable and worked in the hottest of summers. We have to stop listening to those who would have us believe that Australia is causing the world to collapse, the Great Barrier Reef is dead, fossil fuels are killing us and Hansen-Young can take her child whale watching as a part of her Senatorial duties.

i would suggest Old Man that the days of relatively cheap energy was in the days of public ownership, ie before the superior economic managers sold off anything that they coud get their hands on. Also rather than coal-fired power plants how about investing in nuclear, we have the space, the water and the fuel (ie uranium) in abundance.

By that measure Queensland should have the cheapest elecricity ... 

The elecricity grid in NSW was not sold off but 49 per cent was leased for 50 years the money received was invested in new infrastutire  which increased Govt assetts  

Do you know who bought the 49 per cent Union Super funds headed up by Combey 

Eddy why don’t we use the gas the infrastructure is already there 

Brocky, I have no particular issue with coal or gas, just that sooner or later it will all be gone and will not be available for other uses. My issue is why burn coal, oil or gas for electricity when we have a viable alternative for which there is little alternate use (apart from nuclear weapons).

yes agree OM

The rest of the world is using coal power electricity using modern technology in them

Australia is a backward country that wants to buy solar panels and wind turbines from China and Germany who also use coal electricity.

Thanks Eddy, I agree that nuclear is the best possible way to go, efficient, clean, cheap but a minor problem with storage of used units. Australia has the most stable continent on the planet so burying sealed containers should not pose a problem. It's just that every other time I suggest nuclear the trolls appear and I'm over their vitriolic bile.

Brocky, gas is already there but we are at the mercy of the gas companies who choose to hang onto reserves by not exploring their existing leases. The price of gas is being manipulated to an artificial high. We need a government, state or federal to build power stations to create proper competition.

The same companies that devooped Bass straits wanted to de op the huge gas fields in Victoria which don’t require fracking and were refused by both political parties in Victoria . 

Gas in the US has produced electricity at a third our price . 

The issue of nuclear waste is contentious however one report I read (and I hope was not skewed to represent a particular view) suggested that the quantity of nuclear waste generated by a nuclear power station in it's lifetime could be easily contained in a smal house (what is the definition of a 'small house'). This seems to me to be a more environtmentally friendly solution than pouring untold quantity of smoke etc loose into the atmosphere.

I take your point Brocky, Victoria has too many Greens who, although they don't all get elected, have a huge bearing on the way their preferences get allocated. They have become Kingmakers and because of that they are able to push their ideologies and have them implemented by the major parties. Maybe energy exploration should be brought under the control of the federal government with the power to override stae which ban exploration.

We could start by giving farmers an interest in the gas beLow their land as per the US 

But like so many other sensible decisions that should be Parliments alone we are told that our written constitution forbids it. 

OM:  that sounds like a coal vested interest post.  We ALL are responsible for making earth a better place to live and 7 billion people burning coal is a no brainer.  You may be somewhat old but I thought you would be able to do the maths.  Not pretty mate!

 

We have coal

the world needs coal in some countries to provide energy to lift their people out of poverty

its a win win

bit rich of you to enjoy your retirement of the back of Australia’s exploitation of its natural resources that you now want to deny others at a chance to have a decent life 

Yeah, and you would have been the sort of person who cut down the last tree on Easter Island.

Only imbeciles and the mentally challenged destroy that which nourishes them and the 30 pieces of silver you lust after cannot pay for the illeffects of climate change to go away.  Your post reaks of greed as you sell out those who come after you.  Oh yes...who gives a tinkers.  Not my problem?

I just want cheap electricity by whatever means possible and stop susidng anybody .

Let Free Enterprise work it’s magic of competition Civil servants cannot and have never delivered as well as free enterprise .


Free Enterprise at Work .. Why is this good News not celebrated here by our dismal media 


Mr Gupta, 45, is the founder of Liberty House Group, a conglomerate that owes its roots to a business run by the entrepreneur when he was a student at Cambridge University. Since then it has grown into a giant with turnover of $8.7 billion, more than 10,000 employees and a presence in industries from construction to metals, agriculture to mining.

 

He has built an empire in British steel in recent years by buying up assets from Scotland to south Wales. He moved his family to Australia three months ago after making heavy investments in the country’s steel and renewable energy industries.

 

Mirroring his efforts in Britain, Mr Gupta has already been credited with revitalising Australia’s steel industry via his purchase of South Australia’s Whyalla steel works and his plans to spend about $987 million to increase production and seek new export markets.

 

He said that Australia, with its enormous reserves of iron ore — much of it exported to China’s steelmakers — had “missed a trick” by not manufacturing more steel.

 

“All through my life while I have been in the steel business, I never understood why Australia was not a powerhouse for steel,” he said.

 

Quote from the Times of London

  Australia should be a powerhouse for steel, but back in those day when we did have a BHP monopolised steel industry producing steel under import protection tariffs, Australia's steel dependent manufacturing growth was seriously stifled because of the virtual prohibition of efficiently produced, far cheaper, imports.. 


This helped our Asian friends in Japan, Korea and China, by being offered access to the world's lowest cost, high quality iron ore and coal. Our trading friends developed highly competitive domestic and export steel industries, which were closed to Australian importers due to the tariffs put in place to protect the management and workers of BHP.  

I realise this is off topic but is an I.lustration of How regulation and Gvernment interference in an industry reduces employment and raises prices . 

His plans to build electric cars emerged last month when it was disclosed that he was seeking access to a huge General Motors plant in Australia, which closed in October after operating for 70 years.

 

The government of South Australia, where the shuttered site is located, said the Australian division of GFG Alliance, the Gupta family’s international business, intended to develop it as a manufacturing base for an electric vehicle.

 

It is intended to utilise innovative i-Stream technology developed by the venture’s partner Gordon Murray Design, a system that uses lightweight materials and fewer parts to achieve an ultra-low vehicle weight. Mr Murray is best-known as a former chief designer at McLaren 

 

The technology, centred on a steel frame incorporating composite panels to produce a lightweight car, is not untested: it was used five years ago by Yamaha to create small cars aimed at cities.

 

Times of London Quote

How ironic that the Socialist government of SA is being rescued by two hero’s of the right entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Gupta 

Back on topic 


Energy users paid $50 million in total to buy back power from major manufacturers so as to keep the lights on in Victoria and South Australia on two occasions in the past three months. 

That event coincided with moderate temperatures — in the mid-30Cs — in SA and Victoria, but the contribution of wind to the energy grid that day fell to just 16 per cent of total capacity in Victoria.

Quote from Australian

Mr Frydenberg said the mechanism had been required because state governments in Victoria and SA had failed to ensure sufficient despatchable power in their grids.

 

“Their encouragement of the closure of the Hazelwood and Northern power stations, and the rapid uptake of wind and solar, particularly in South Australia … have contributed to their problems,” Mr Frydenberg said. 

 

“It is in this context that the market operator has been left with no choice but to contract for reserve supplies, the cost of which is ultimately passed on to families and business.”

Quote from Australian 

Interesting comparison between energy and communications costs for households

South Australia may have the most expensive power prices in the country, but it's communication that's dominating budgets. Mobile phone and communications bills now exceed electricity costs for many, SACOSS finds.

Full story.

Just checked my personal monthly costs out of interest. Communications (landline/internet/mobile) were marginally higher (7%) than energy (electricity/gas) costs over the last 12 months.

I live in a 1 person household in SE Queensland.

 It sure of your point . But it only proves that once Govt interfere in any industry prices go up .

 

 

Japan is planning to build 45 new coal fired power stations. This is great news for Australia because they buy about 30% of our high quality coal.

 China has plans to build 560 new coal fired power stations and another 140 in other parts of the world.

Overall around 1600 new coal fired power plants are either under construction or planned to be built.

In Australia we have 24. Why arent we taking advantage of the new technology HELE coal fired power stations? We already have the most sought after coal on the planet and we're not maximising its potential to provide households and industry with cheap clean reliable energy. 

Because we are stupid

You may be right Somebody. According to UNO WHO our average IQ is only 96. This could also be why all the really clever people like Rick cant find a partner.

It's the vulnerable I worry about:the elderly livingalone and new birn babies

Me too Johnny. :(

The Trump administration is targeting federal funding for studying and tracking climate change while boosting the continued burning of fossil fuels.

 

The White House’s 2019 spending plan seeks to reduce or eliminate climate science programs across an array of federal agencies, from gutting efforts to track greenhouse gas emissions and research to eliminating funding for NASA satellites that study the impacts of climate change.

 

Mr Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and appointed forceful advocates for increased oil, gas and coal production to lead key federal agencies overseeing environmental enforcement, energy production and public lands. 

WSJ

So climate scientists come out and say “the science is settled” and then complain about funding for research being cut?


So much hyperbole. According to Bjorn Lomborg, using the IPCC’s own formulae, if every countryabided by the Paris agreement it would defray only 1% of the CO2 needed to prevent the unwanted temperature rise. So how is this stance by the Trump administration going to make a sod of difference?

There is also the small matter that cold weather spells tend to kill more people than hot spells, so the Henny Penny approach to the supposed temperature rises should be ignored in this context. But we will soon get a chance to test that out, with the next cooling period on the way.....


Bill Shorten  seems to view companies being profitable as some sort of a corporate crime They  fail to recognise that the bulk of these profits are distributed to investors who take the risk of financing the operations of the business and expect an adequate return. 

 

Some of the largest investors are union superannuation funds, which place most of their funds in profitable companies to provide their members with the maximum retirement income. Does this  labour stalwart want to penalise workers’ incomes in their retirement years?

The fate of the New Acland coalmine and, with it, neighbouring rural communities, is under threat after the Queensland government refused to green-light the $900 million expansion of its operations.

 

 

Mine owner New Hope had repeatedly told authorities the expansion was needed to keep the mine open as coal reserves in its existing pits were about to be exhausted.

 

More than 700 employees and contractors rely on work from the mine, near Toowoomba, and a further 240 jobs were expected to be created with the expansion. 

 

local politicians, the mining union and Acland workers condemned the decision as unfair and warned it could endanger the future of the surrounding communities, including Oakey.

 

Australian 


CFMEU mining division local representative Mick Hartin said the decision was a result of “green lawfare’’, with environmentalists using legal challenges to destroy the resource industry. “The anti-coal movement is infiltrating the government and keeping Queenslanders out of jobs,’’ he said. “Let’s not forget this in an Australian-owned company that pays Australian taxes, unlike a lot of the other big resource companies, and employs local people.”

Australian 

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