Following from the previous thread on the carbon tax and electricity prices I have graphed the change in electricity prices using the ABS CPI data (tables 12 and 13). ABS data goes back to the early 80s – but there are some huge numbers there so I start the graphs in 1990.
So the latest electricity price increases are the single largest quarterly increase since 1990 including the introduction of the GST. So let’s have a look at the annual data.
Again the single largest increase since 1990 – just edging out March 2010 (18.5% to 18.3%). The other observation is the massive run up in price increases since 2008.
So then I thought I’d compare quarterly changes in electricity prices with the overall quarterly changes in CPI. Again it looks like a big change since 2008.
Finally it was suggested earlier on twitter that there might be some sort of September quarter seasonal effect driving the large price increase. So I graphed just the September quarter figures.
Don’t think that explains the large increase this quarter. The latest price increase is still quite large.
The rises are outrageous. I am in Tasmania where all the electricity is ‘hydro’ apart from small occasional boosters from a gas power-station. Yet I have a 5.8% Carbon Tax component on my bill.
The quarterly price rise is enhanced by that other iniquitous non-tax, the ‘Renewable Energy Certificate charges’: 4.8% in my monoploy supplier’s case. So not only do we have a punitive carbox tax on non-carbon producing generation but we are having to pay to subsidise inefficient wind power from the eyesore destroying the pristine visata os Woolnorth.
And to top it all we export some of our clean energy to the North Island carbon-TAX-FREE.
It is high time that our energy producers simply refused to pay and refused to pass on this iniquitous tax and stand up to the Government.
This makes a mockery of KRudd’s 2007 election promise that a labor government will keep the cost of living down.
Good work Sinclair. If you discounted the September 2012 figure by 9 percentage points (which is the IPART figure for NSW – I guess we can use that as a proxy), I imagine it would look like the trend since 2008 is continuing.
You’re welcome!
Goat – you’re a good man. oops misogynist that I am – you’re a good person.
SteveC – the problem remains 9% in one quarter v 10% over 5 years.
On the AEMO data the wholesale prices are down a bit from July but still about 60% higher than in June, before the carbon tax came in. I suspect the wholesale prices will rise again over summer due to demand.
A 60-100% wholesale price rise over the quarter translates to just 14.9% on electricity bills, which shows you the overheads are quite significant. A lot of the overhead costs are probably related to RET due to the solar FIT’s, certificates, and the massive expansion in rooftop PV (which my taxes are paying for!).
This is what free market capitalism looks like. /sarc
I haven’t read the modelling in detail Sinc, but I assume the model factors in reduction in the CO2 intensity of electricity production, which after all is the whole point of the carbon price.
Cage match: govt troll SteveC vs. Doomlord.
C’mon SteveC. 16 years. No warming. More CO2. Where to from here, with “sustainable alternative energy” falling on its arse in every sense?
blogstrop, you need to go back to the old thread to see the “no warming for 16 years” is a furphy.
SteveC – no warming for 16 years is not a furphy, it is the reality (within the error bars). Furthermore the last decade has been falling in the TLT data. I link to RSS as they are a private mob without barrows to push, unlike the motley CRU.
You know why the temperature should be falling (cyclical component, I mean, not solar yet since we’re at peak) so I won’t give you a hard time on that. But please be realistic about the data. Our job is to interpret the data and fit hypotheses to it, not the other way around. At the moment the statement “no warming for 16 years” does indeed fit the data. It requires an explanation, to which effect the IPCC has so far been mum.
Gas and other household fuels also up 14.2 per cent, the largest quarterly increase on record.
The 15.3 per cent spike in electricity prices in the September quarter – also the largest on record – is around 7 percentage points higher than the average increase in the September quarter over the past three years of 8.3 per cent (probably associated largely with price resets for transmission and distribution companies).
Just keep saying it, all you Steves. Mantra time.
Sure Bruce, but is has increased over 17 years (or any greater period), so the 16 year period is a classic cherry pick. In fact I agree with you, we should be in a cyclic cooling (ENSO,PDO etc). Givena cycle length of 30 years, looking at a period of 16 years is fairly meaningless, Hence my description as a furphy.
SteveC – 60 years not 30 years. Sinusoidals have no secular increasing trend over the long term.
I don’t make this stuff up, I just look at the data and try to make sense of it.
As I’ve said before the combination of solar magnetic effects (probably via the Svensmark proposed mechanism) plus cyclic changes in the oceans plus a small empirical forcing from CO2 (net of clouds and thunderstorms) fits the data quite well over a period of 250 years or so. I’d extend back to 1659 but I’d have to correct for the Maunder SCL uncertainty, which I don’t know how to do correctly yet.
BREAKING: Charts show electricity prices are rising.
Best to leave SteveC to talk to himself, that way he can have an agreeable conversation.
Energy being one of the biggest components of manufacture, should not the government be doing everything in its power to keep energy prices down to compound our natural advantages in mineral production and refining?
Don’t higher energy costs cost the government more in tax revenue than they rake in?
Normally, Winston, you’d be correct to assume that. But at the moment, retaining political power trumps power to the people.
Good to have you back so soon!
Can you add a graph comparing prices against uptake of solar cells, Sinc? My guess is they would be close.
David – you got a data source?
So what you’re saying effectively is that the carbon tax has added about 7% to the electricity price. Thats about right given the modelling isn’t it?
If the wholesale prices don’t rise significantly over summer the generators are going to be really annoyed. Thats the time of the year when they make most of their profit!
The 2000 GST increase did not affect business as they claim the GST component back
blogstrop 24 Oct 12 at 8:09 pm
Oi!
I hope I don’t have to change my name to avoid the wrath. Steve K, we need to rally!
My electricity bill stayed the same as this time last year, despite a close to 30% drop in electricity consumption respectively.
Wreckage – just out of interest can you tell us what you were paying per kWh last year compared to now (depending on how much you use there may be a 3-4 different pricing tiers to compare). There should be a breakdown of the per tier pricing on your bill.
Here in Canberra electricity prices went from 0.1515/kwh to 01790/kwh on 1 July 12. An increase of 18%.
Remember when Swan said the hike was nothing compared to the GST. Hey DC – the GST also collects many more times revenue and the rate will not “float” in the future through delegated legislation.
Sirocco – remember the ACT is also funding some large scale solar piece of crap.
Sirocco – thats the sort of figure I would have expected around the country. But if wreckage is telling the truth and he really has reduced his usage by 30% but the bill is the same that means the price he’s paying for electricity has gone up about 40%.
Thats true, though at the moment it looks very much like the rate will float down by quite a bit after the fixed period ends.
That solar crap is still a piece of dirt on the Monaro Highway south to Cooma and is still going thru the development consultation stage. What will be the increase when it actually comes on stream?
Sirocco wrote:
“Here in Canberra electricity prices went from 0.1515/kwh to 01790/kwh on 1 July 12. An increase of 18%.”
Crikey!!!
Here in Adelaide our electricty is costing around $0.37 / kW-hr.
Time I moved to Canberra.
Clearly nobody living there has a bleedin clue what it’s like elsewhere in the country.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/50hectare-solar-farm-planned-for-tuggeranong-20120905-25dvi.html
So if the ACT were to go all solar, the power bill would increase by around $400 per year.
Wally, we get a lot of hydro from SMEC. Any hydro near Adelaide? Would not recommend any move to Canberra – godawful place for any number of reasons.
Dot – is that figure of 18.6cents/Kwh correct? That is 100 times the current cost.
My source was Simon Corbell!
I’ve been catching up with the papers.
More on the cause of electricity price rises:
and
Carbon price’s feared impact a ‘storm in a teacup’
Those numbers look right. Coal fired electricity is generally around 5-7c/kWh (wholesale). So 18.6c/Kwh for the solar power is about 3 times the cost of coal.
SteveC: on local ABC radio this morning there was someone (I’m not sure who, but from the energy industry I think) saying that (in Qld, at least) aggregate demand for electricity was going down, but peak demand was still on the increase.
He also said about 25% of infrastructure and generator capacity was purely there for the peak of the peak – like a week or so a year of heatwave conditions when everyone in the State has aircon on. (!)
All quite surprising and complicated, this electricity business…
Steve, only a dope or spinmeister would have predicted a large effect on the economy from the carbon tax. The effect is real and negative according to treasury, and because of their obvious fudges, larger than they admit. All for no environmental good at all.
Pointless is as pointless does.
Well said Pedro.
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only a dope or spinmeister
Like Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce do you mean?
So what’s worse, Pedro: the current system or the Coalition’s ‘direct action’ spending to attempt to achieve the same results?
Wtf is that supposed to mean SteveC?
Kimberly our plastic sex doll is calling out for you. Go!
Moron.
Stepford
The liberal policy is damaging but nearly as toxic as the Green/liars party alliance. That’s because the libs policy has a $3 billon ceiling and the cost is absorbed through the budget thereby impacting the traded goods sector far far less.
The libs policy is shit, but it’s not a sack full of shit. It’s more
Ike a bag full.
Your.. Not our, you idiot SteveC.
only a dope or spinmeister would have predicted a large effect on the economy from the carbon tax.
Wrecking ball, cobra, $100 roast dinners, whyalla wiped off the map. Ringing any bells now, JC?
Kimberly our plastic sex doll. Freudian?
It was Wayne Hanson, the State Secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union who very courageously made the point that Whyalla would be “wiped off the map” long before Abbott agreed with him.
SteveC
no slip other than iPad is a whacko product to type on. Get our che thrills some other way.
The carbon setting setting the pwice at around 3 times the worlds was never going to destroy the economy quickly. It wad always going to be a slow spreading but very malignant cancer running through our economy.
If you really think it has little impact on the economy, you’re a fucking imbecile. In fact , if you believed the opposite, you ought to question your own support of this toxic tax. Why support it if has little impact?
Moron.
Che Guevarra thrills? Are you a closet leftie?