How will the power price increases affect you?

[LimeSlice]

We still have some rebates here. They cancelled the other ones 10 days early though, so we missed them by 2 days...so very unimpressed with that.
But now they do some other scheme but it equates to the same amount anyway.
Do you qualify for the Green Loans Home Assessment thing? We did that and now we are eligiable for teh $10000 interest free loan to get solar panels or water tanks, etc

[Liviam]

I had no idea about this but now am absolutely *****ty my pants. Like heaps of yo on here we struggle to pay our bill at the moment. Guess we are going to turn everything possible off at the power point, no second drinks fridge, use lamps instead of lights and power saving globes everywhere.
How can they justify such a huge jump in cost with no alternative available to us??

[*TripleJ*]

we will be sitting in the dark with no computer no net no BB no tv no washing maching basically we would get cut off lucky i just got myself a job

[~Raven~]

Might be a good time to revolt and start using candles and only essentials

[LimeSlice]

They justify it by trying to make you use alternatives and force the government to use more renewable sources.

The fact of the matter is that this increase will force everyone to look at how and when they udse energy and push them to seek out alternatives. That will only be a good thing

[Astrid]

DH is in the water industry and there is also talk of water going up, especially in those areas that are much less than state averages. So glad are not with a water board and deal with our own water.

[Doing my best]

We are looking at getting solar panals with a loan you can get from the govt through their green scheme..

We already have solar hot water, and I need to cut back on keeping the appliances on when not being used.

And DH might need to start putting layers of clothes on in winter instead of sitting around in a tshirt and pair of shorts with the heater going.

[Olive]

we have downlights through out the house which suck the power, were looking at this year replacing them with 12v ones that use energy saving bulbs instead, will cost a bit to transfer over though
we got our power bill the other day $420 for the quater, im not sure if thats high

[Tinks]

It'll be hard here too. I've also heard that water rates will rise dramatically as well. I already pay $40 a fortnight on my power bill, with new charges it will be $80

It's ridiculous!

[briggsy's girl]

we've already had a letter from our water board (last year it came out) - something ridiculous like 70% increase over three years. it is crap!

we get doubly hit - DH's family were encouraged to subdivide the block we live on when his dad passed away, and as a result, even though for land rates we have one title, for water they see us as having two so we get hit with double the rates! simply because we have a connection point available - it's not even connected! tis just crud!

power increases - we'll just deal as it comes up i guess. we can't afford to make changes to ligh fittings at the moment - but the downlights we were planning on installing and bought a while back - i migth ahve to sell on ebay i think! i thought they were supposed to be energy efficient but i've heard a lot different now!

we dont' really use lights in the house unless necessary. i turn TV's off when we can. try not to use the a/c (but i won't NOT use if it means E stays warm) - i hate using the electric heating BUT, i have no choice given how ridiculously expensive bottled gas is

[Floweryfields]

Girls looks like we'll all be soon back to the 1940's - candles, kero fridges and lamps and no BB to entertain our evenings!

[Floweryfields]

They justify it by trying to make you use alternatives and force the government to use more renewable sources.

The fact of the matter is that this increase will force everyone to look at how and when they udse energy and push them to seek out alternatives. That will only be a good thing

But won't that just bite themselves in the bum - I mean the power companies make money by providing power, if they put the prices up so high that everyone extememly cuts back, then they don't make enough money and they put the prices up again. Sounds like a very vicious cycle to me.

[~Trish~]

We were lucky enough to get the government grant for solar panels and had them installed in December. It has cut our power consumption by half and we get paid 66c for each kilowatt hour we generate in surpluss (we pay 20c per kilowatt hour that we use so it's a pretty good deal ). To get this deal we had to fill out a premium tariff agreement which no one tells you about! You need to enquire yourself, dodgy...

We also qualify for the green loan and are thinking about what we should use it for. DH wants more solar panels, we'd also consider solar hot water, but we got a quote recently and the payback period was 15 years. So we're not sure if it's worth it. I guess if rates go up it might be better. We already have a water tank.

We had someone from the council come in and replace all our old light globes with energy saving ones for free. Olive - we have energy saving downlights and they blow really easily - grrrrr!

We took up the government rebate for insulation too, luckily it didn't cost us a cent. Hopefully that makes a difference on our electricity bill with our heating and cooling.

It's such a scary thought all these price rises, I worry for us all

[Liviam]

How do I find out about solar panels and solar hot water? Also how do I find out about making my house more energy efficient? Guess I've got three years to get it sorted before I end up under the street lights with Maz!

[lilima]

We got the solar panels, which has cut our energy bill considerably.

we also pay nothing in heating as DH's dad is a tree lopper, so we have free wook and a log heater. We have instant hot water, so no continual heating on a tank.
We have water tanks to look after the garden.
We do have evap cooling,m but try not to use it.

We are also thinking of double glazing the windows (that we had tinted that helps keep the heat out)

My house is such an energy sucker. Our living room windows are west facing, that means it gets really hot, hence the tint, and the possibility of double glazing.

[Stevie]

OMG!!!!!
i seriously thought our bill was bad, makes me feel a little better that some are as bad. we pay about 500-600 a quarter. we have 3 aircons, (2 in the house and 1 in the shed that runs 24/7 due to it being out reptile shed) there for we have a **** load of lights, heaters and heat matts that run for 12 hours a day. plus all the stuff in the house...
we're screwed