the great australian air con - price of evaporative air conditioner

If you are an Australian without air conditioning, not only are you hot and sweaty, you will get a lot of complaints, writes Sarah Phillips.
You are most likely paying for the cool comfort of your neighbor.
Are you one of the lucky ones with air conditioning?
When we are sultry in the heat wave, those who can turn on the air conditioner and keep it cool.
Those who can't lie half
Naked in front of the fans, with a damp cloth hanging on his head.
Over the past 20 years, Australians have received air conditioning.
This is the case in 1994 of households.
More than half have done so these days.
Although it is happy to spread in the face of cold air, it is a serious shortcoming that is chilling.
The Productivity Committee said last year that air conditioning has caused a lot of tension in the power network, which has caused us to pay a high price (pdf).
In the hot weather, like today, we all open the air
At the same time, it also caused the situation that electric power enterprises call "peak demand.
The productivity committee said,I]
Peak demand events in New South Wales, less than 40 hours a year (
Or less than 1% of the time)
About 25 of retail electricity bills.
"In other words, the pressure to meet peak demand makes power companies excessive
Invest in additional power stations that we rarely use.
But we still pay for building them on the electricity bill.
"For example," continued the report on the power network regulatory framework of the productivity board, "a family running 2 KW of (
Electrical input)
Reverse cycle air conditioning, and use it during peak hours, receive an implicit subsidy of about $350 a year from other consumers who do not.
"In fact, your sweaty neighbor has no air --
Con is paying for your comfort.
The productivity committee says the solution is called "demand management ".
This is to find ways to reduce overall power demand, especially during peak times, so that a large amount of money will not be invested in new power plants that have almost never been opened.
This is basically equivalent to the power limit during the drought, so no new dams are needed.
CSIRO published an article yesterday about some of the requirements management ideas that are already running.
It includes an idea they call "cost-reflecting pricing", also known as "time-to-use pricing" or "flexible pricing ".
Essentially, your power company charges you more electricity bills at peak demand, encouraging you to save energy
Intensive activities for cheaper time of day.
Some energy retailers in Australia offer this service, but this is often what customers need to call to ask for, rather than automatically.
I also talked to Gilles Walgenwitz, consultant at energy efficiency company Energetics, about some other ideas.
He nominated "voluntary cuts" among the clients (
Business customers usually)
Reach an agreement with their energy companies to turn off a device on request at peak demand.
There is also "direct load control", where energy companies gain the power of customers to power off various electrical appliances during peak demand.
All these ideas have been piloted in Australia.
They all proved to be effective.
However, the implementation of these measures is slow.
This is mainly because of the way energy companies make money.
Energy companies either make money by charging customers electricity bills or by building new infrastructure.
The more electricity you use, the more likely the power company will be to get revenue from these sources.
They have very little power to help you save electricity.
Coupled with the popularity of solar panels, the power company's business model appeared unprepared in the 21 st century.
The productivity committee has been asked to try to make some suggestions to enable Australian energy companies to organize and better prepare for changing market conditions.
At that time, the government warmly accepted the recommendation of the productivity committee, but said that the Standing Committee on Energy and Resources was already considering many of these proposals, which consisted of the Australian national energy minister.
At the SCER meeting held on December 2013, the ministers announced that "while continuing to recognize the value of demand-side reforms, the ministers agreed to request that Australian energy market operators postpone the submission of proposals for rule changes, officials were also required to carry out further work on DRM, including cost-benefit studies, and to report to ministers at their first meeting in 2014.
Which is the government?
"Watch this space" for ese.
At the same time, the government has taken a new look at energy policy through the energy white paper.
The document will expire on September.
As noted in the report of the productivity committee: "[T]
The national electricity market is often proven to be a graveyard for reform proposals, and then the reform proposals remain inert words in the unprogressive document.
"The risk is that if the latest proposals for energy market reform fall into bureaucracy, the elderly, the young and the infirm will face the risk that the grid will not be able to cope.
The rest of us will pay higher electricity bills.
Sara Phillips is an editor of the ABC Environment Portal, which was originally published on.
Check out her full profile here.
Topic: electricity-energy-and-