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Australia’s election debate on energy ignores the miracle of rooftop solar | Saul Griffith
Power harvested from our roofs and stored locally could smash carbon emissions and obliterate household energy bills
It is a political tragedy that in this election our energy discussion is still framed around loss and sacrifice when it should be about abundance and opportunity. Take the current skirmish over Labor’s plan to fast-track new poles and wires with $20bn in federal support to accommodate new large-scale renewable projects. Labor’s modelling indicates the investment will wipe $378 a year from household bills by 2030. The government, on the other hand, asserts that the investment will result in significantly higher energy bills.Both sides are modelling the wrong thing. They are forgetting half of the energy equation. They are modelling the supply side (where we get energy from) and forgetting the demand side (what we use it for).
The future is not just swapping big coal for big solar. To get to zero emissions, we have to electrify the demand side and decarbonise supply. Critically this means tripling the amount of clean electricity generated to also power our cars and heat our homes. A smart energy policy would support electrification of our communities. At this stage, both parties could take the lead in this area and should be fighting for the opportunity, given the windfall it will be for their constituents.Labor misses the point because it has not grasped the potential of electrifying our homes and vehicles, which will drive much greater household energy and cost savings – as much as $5,000 a year by 2030. The Coalition misses the point because it doesn’t model the coming electrification of the demand side where the majority of new electricity demand will be met by more community and rooftop solar, which will be cheaper than the electricity from those transmission lines.Through the miracle of rooftop solar, Australian households are already accessing the cheapest energy in the history of humanity. Solar is already installed at approximately $1/W of capacity. After financing, that’s around 6c/kWh delivered to you from your rooftop. This is approximately 20% of the price of electricity from the grid. We now just need to let our rooftop and community solar do more. It should also be powering our cars and our heat.
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