15 ms·

The issue for me is that it doesn't matter how cheap they are. Australian government approach is largely to subsidize homeowners to put solar panels on their r

The issue for me is that it doesn't matter how cheap they are. Australian government approach is largely to subsidize homeowners to put solar panels on their roof. (They do do other things too! But billions in home owner subsidies...) The main incentive of course is they then have cheaper power bills for not much outlay. If you rent, nearly nothing. You'd have to have a generous landlord or luck out on a house someone has already done and then moved from. The latter will admittedly will become more common over time. If you live in an apartment, nearly nothing. While it is technically possible to put solar on the roof the extra complications of body corporate make it largely a non-starter. Besides, in truely large apartment buildings the roof top space is tiny compared to the number of apartments so the benefit is minimal anyway. So for now, only standalone homeowners get this benefit. And while I am not sure, I suspect reducing homeowners customer costs shifts the cost burden for the grid slightly more to others. I just want the government to fund society wide infrastructure to benefit everyone in society...

bawolff 6y ago
There's lots of people in the world with lots of different situations. If you only fund things that benefit every single person equally, you won't fund anything, because there are no initiaves that benefit every single member of society equally.
- _carbyau_ 6y ago
  I agree with your first sentence. But you lost me after that. I never asked for benefit to every single person perfectly equally. For society, having the quite significant proportion of people who are renters and apartment dwellers getting more than an insignificant benefit from our own government should be a thing. I am not asking for handouts. But for the handouts to those people wealthy enough (not rich per se but wealthy enough) to own their own standalone home to stop. And for that money to benefit all via society wide infrastructure such as a powerstation/energy storage/grid costs and upgrades. It'd benefit the standalone homeowners still. But everyone else too.
  - bagacrap 6y ago
    I have no horse in this race, but it seems to me the solar panels on single family dwellings do benefit everyone. Presumably there are times when the house in question is producing more than it uses, at which point electricity is being pumped back into the grid (I dunno about aus but in the US they're compensated far below market rates for this generation). So it sounds to me as if home owners are selling off space that they own (at great expense!) to contribute to the grid. Apartment dwellers (or condo owners) as you have noted don't usually have the same kind of space to sell off. And of course apartment dwellers benefit from the reduction in externalities.
    - _carbyau_ 6y ago
      "So it sounds to me as if home owners are selling off space that they own (at great expense!) to contribute to the grid." Well, the "great expense" is subsidised is the issue. So not that great an expense. Effectively their power bills should cancel out the remaining costs eventually and then the home owner should effectively get "free energy" after that. How much free energy? Maybe none and they are ripped off! Maybe lots. Generally people are betting on at least some, or they wouldn't do it. My point though is why not spend that money on power grid infrastructure which would benefit all of us! In particular the economies of scale should have more environmental AND economic impact than thousands of custom roof sites installed with varying degree of expertise and maintained by home amateurs.
      - bagacrap 6y ago
        No, they're selling their roof real estate to improve the capacity for the whole grid. That's why they're receiving money, although you choose to think of as a subsidy. The great expense was the acquisition of said real estate. This money spend does benefit everyone (even me, on the other side of the planet), because it improves the climate change situation, and locals in particular, because it doesn't require using lots of land to do it. That land can be used for something else useful to you.
        6y ago
mb7733 6y ago
Wouldn't landlords have the same incentive? By lowering the cost of utilities for their rental property they can increase the share of rent they keep as profit (in the case that utilities are included in rent) or charge more rent, based on the fact that the property is more desirable with the cheaper utilities / better environmental footprint. Renewables are nothing new here. The same incentives encourage landlords to make properties generally energy efficient and desirable. Don't get me wrong, I know the realities of rental housing. Many landlords do not give a shit, especially in markets without much housing. But as a general rule, the incentives are there, and eventually will have a large impact on the rental market. If most properties are solar powered, a rental that is not will have come with a discount.
- photojosh 6y ago
  In Australia, the renter almost always pays the power bill (excepting share houses, usually students). It's hard to market "you'll spend less on power so that's why the rent is higher".
  - mb7733 6y ago
    Of course it's not the headline on the rental ad, but that is a factor in what makes a rental property desirable. If you're not taking average utility bills into account when looking for a rental, you should be. Maybe this is more relevant in cold climates. As a student I once rented an old house where the heating oil bill would surpass the rent in the winter. I won't make that mistake again, even if the rent on the house is cheap. A self sufficient unit with 0 power bill would be pretty attractive to me as a tenant.
    - photojosh 6y ago
      My experience with renting (up until 2 years ago) was always that demand exceeded supply and so we couldn't put things like appliance energy efficiency into the must-have list. And yeah, in quite a temperate part of Australia here... cooling is more important than heating.

bawolff 6y ago

There's lots of people in the world with lots of different situations. If you only fund things that benefit every single person equally, you won't fund anything, because there are no initiaves that benefit every single member of society equally.

_carbyau_ 6y ago
I agree with your first sentence. But you lost me after that. I never asked for benefit to every single person perfectly equally. For society, having the quite significant proportion of people who are renters and apartment dwellers getting more than an insignificant benefit from our own government should be a thing. I am not asking for handouts. But for the handouts to those people wealthy enough (not rich per se but wealthy enough) to own their own standalone home to stop. And for that money to benefit all via society wide infrastructure such as a powerstation/energy storage/grid costs and upgrades. It'd benefit the standalone homeowners still. But everyone else too.
- bagacrap 6y ago
  I have no horse in this race, but it seems to me the solar panels on single family dwellings do benefit everyone. Presumably there are times when the house in question is producing more than it uses, at which point electricity is being pumped back into the grid (I dunno about aus but in the US they're compensated far below market rates for this generation). So it sounds to me as if home owners are selling off space that they own (at great expense!) to contribute to the grid. Apartment dwellers (or condo owners) as you have noted don't usually have the same kind of space to sell off. And of course apartment dwellers benefit from the reduction in externalities.
  - _carbyau_ 6y ago
    "So it sounds to me as if home owners are selling off space that they own (at great expense!) to contribute to the grid." Well, the "great expense" is subsidised is the issue. So not that great an expense. Effectively their power bills should cancel out the remaining costs eventually and then the home owner should effectively get "free energy" after that. How much free energy? Maybe none and they are ripped off! Maybe lots. Generally people are betting on at least some, or they wouldn't do it. My point though is why not spend that money on power grid infrastructure which would benefit all of us! In particular the economies of scale should have more environmental AND economic impact than thousands of custom roof sites installed with varying degree of expertise and maintained by home amateurs.
    - bagacrap 6y ago
      No, they're selling their roof real estate to improve the capacity for the whole grid. That's why they're receiving money, although you choose to think of as a subsidy. The great expense was the acquisition of said real estate. This money spend does benefit everyone (even me, on the other side of the planet), because it improves the climate change situation, and locals in particular, because it doesn't require using lots of land to do it. That land can be used for something else useful to you.
      - 6y ago

mb7733 6y ago

Wouldn't landlords have the same incentive? By lowering the cost of utilities for their rental property they can increase the share of rent they keep as profit (in the case that utilities are included in rent) or charge more rent, based on the fact that the property is more desirable with the cheaper utilities / better environmental footprint. Renewables are nothing new here. The same incentives encourage landlords to make properties generally energy efficient and desirable. Don't get me wrong, I know the realities of rental housing. Many landlords do not give a shit, especially in markets without much housing. But as a general rule, the incentives are there, and eventually will have a large impact on the rental market. If most properties are solar powered, a rental that is not will have come with a discount.

photojosh 6y ago
In Australia, the renter almost always pays the power bill (excepting share houses, usually students). It's hard to market "you'll spend less on power so that's why the rent is higher".
- mb7733 6y ago
  Of course it's not the headline on the rental ad, but that is a factor in what makes a rental property desirable. If you're not taking average utility bills into account when looking for a rental, you should be. Maybe this is more relevant in cold climates. As a student I once rented an old house where the heating oil bill would surpass the rent in the winter. I won't make that mistake again, even if the rent on the house is cheap. A self sufficient unit with 0 power bill would be pretty attractive to me as a tenant.
  - photojosh 6y ago
    My experience with renting (up until 2 years ago) was always that demand exceeded supply and so we couldn't put things like appliance energy efficiency into the must-have list. And yeah, in quite a temperate part of Australia here... cooling is more important than heating.