Bruce Mountain, 25 June 2015 The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has rejected SA Power Network’s (SAPN’s) proposal to charge households with rooftop solar higher prices than they charge households without. An exciting day for the tariff tragics amongst us. Others might ask why the big fuss – households don’t see the network charge (retailers absorb it… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Uncategorized
Give people of NSW a chance to own electricity assets with a public float
Bruce Mountain, 23 Mar 2015 Published on Sydney Morning Herald The debate about privatisation of poles and wires in NSW has focused on two questions: will electricity prices go down and will privatisation improve the government’s finances? A third question – will privately owned networks undermine households and businesses trying to reduce their dependence on… Read more »
Grattan’s “Sundown, Sunrise” – CME’s Response to Technical Appendix
Bruce Mountain and Paul Szuster 12 Jun 2015 Published on Climate Spectator and RenewEconomy Yesterday the Grattan Institute released the Technical Appendix to their report “Sundown, Sunrise. How Australia can finally get solar power right” which they released almost three weeks ago. In their report, the authors calculated the societal cost of photovoltaics and concluded… Read more »
Grattan’s “Sundown Sunrise” Does it Add up?
Bruce Mountain, 08 Jun 2015 Published on Climate Spectator and RenewEconomy The Grattan Institute recently released a report “Sundown, Sunrise. How Australia can finally get solar power right”. By the end of the second paragraph we have been told that rooftop photovoltaics (PV) have made Australia almost $10bn poorer and that “governments created a policy mess that… Read more »
Why power networks keep winning – at your expense
Bruce Mountain, 01 Aug 2013 Published by Business Specator, http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/8/1/energy-markets/why-power-networks-keep-winning-your-expense The Australian Energy Regulator decided yesterday that South Australian electricity users should pay $35 million more for electricity because SA PowerNetworks (the South Australian electricity distribution network service provider) needs to spend more money to prune trees. On the face of it, this looks like… Read more »
Making sure solar’s price is right
Bruce Mountain, 24 Oct 2013 Published by Business Spectator, http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/10/24/solar-energy/making-sure-solars-price-right “The Australian Energy Market Commission has got the ball rolling on what will be a very interesting and worthy debate on network charges. Not a moment too soon. Their document, released yesterday, seems fairly non-committal, though it does seem to incline to the view that distributed generators… Read more »
Why AGL is mistaken on solar subsidies
Bruce Mountain, 25 Nov 2014 Published by Business Spectator, http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/11/25/policy-politics/why-agl-mistaken-solar-subsidies “Electricity tariffs. Oh what fun! In Australia it’s issue du jour, perhaps not unreasonably given the “creative destruction” wrought on by photovoltaics. The latest contribution to the debate is a paper by AGL Energy economist Paul Simshauser. The paper claims to have isolated “the incidence… Read more »
Time to write down the value of NSW networks
Bruce Mountain, 17 Oct 2014 Published by Business Spectator, http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/10/17/energy-markets/time-write-down-value-nsw-networks “The NSW Government has committed to partially privatise, via leases, two of its three distribution network service providers and its transmission network service provider. There is still a long way to go and an election stands in the way. The last two privatisation attempts… Read more »
Don’t fall for the networks’ fixed price push
Bruce Mountain, 28 Aug 2014 Published by Business Spectator, http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/8/28/energy-markets/dont-fall-networks-fixed-price-push “The Australian Energy Market Commission has recently released its draft decision on changes to the rules for the way that network service providers charge consumers for their services. One of the main points in this decision is that network tariffs should vary by time… Read more »
Why the power networks are wrong about writedowns
Bruce Mountain, 07 Aug 2014 Published by Business Spectator, http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/8/7/energy-markets/why-power-networks-are-wrong-about-writedowns “The Energy Networks Association has recently released some modelling that suggests consumers will be worse off if stranded network assets are written off. The gist of its argument is that such revaluations are perceived negatively by investors, who then demand a higher rate of… Read more »