Victoria has had smart meters rolled out for over a decade.
The rest of the states in the NEM are aiming for 2030 to complete their rollouts.
Aside from the supposed "contentious" nature of smart meters, which is mostly the RW cookers thinking it's some nefarious plot, along with vaccines and 5G.
>Aside from the supposed "contentious" nature of smart meters, which is mostly the RW cookers thinking it's some nefarious plot, along with vaccines and 5G.
Eh I sit on the fence on this one. Take your pick as to who is going to abuse the data. Corps or the government to taste.
Consider this very proposal, incentives to use power at certain times are good. But that incentive structure could instead be very anti consumer. Higher prices when we need electricity would be a horrid state of affairs when rents have doubled in 5 years and a lot of people are barely holding on.
Smart meters don't make things better or worse, they are technology that enables better time-of-use metering than the century of multiple meters for peak vs off-peak consumption, as well as making meter reading/billing cheaper.
They enable new services like feed-in tariffs and incorporation of V2G and VPP infrastructure.
Rents have not doubled in 5 years.
Rental inflation peaked at ~8% and is now below 4% pa.
Well my rent went from 320 to 520. And then they wanted 580 so we are moving to a slightly nicer place for 600. Not quite doubled but near enough. My area has had larger increases than that. Bloke up the road had to have his daughter move home and take up 300 dollars of the rent, which is what her apartment was costing her before covid.
> they are technology that enables better time-of-use metering
Right and we all have to pretend that the technology is neutral and act surprised when it ends up being used for anti consumer purposes? Thats the usual game isn't it?
On rentals: Anecdata vs ABS statistics. No one is arguing that rents haven't gone up, but the rise peaked post COVID at ~8% and are now roughly reverted to the mean of 3-4% pa.
On smart meters:
Victoria has had them for 2 decades now.
If there were anti-consumer uses that our retailers or distributers took advantage of we'd know about them by now.
We've also had a fully privatized grid for quarter of a century, with generators, transmission, distribution, and retail separated.
The rorts have been by the distributors "gold plating" the poles/wires, and some machinations of the NEM by coal/gas generators.
Neither of which were caused by the smart meter rollout.
Co-located PV/BESS or Wind/BESS is the best grid solution anyway. The REZs with transmission infrastructure (subsidized by government) will also add to the return.
The good thing is that even with over a decade of conservative government trying to kill it, renewables are now commercially the only choice for Australia and we will benefit from the rapid advances in storage as well.
Grid level plants are starting to also incorporate synthetic condensers and other FCAS services to make our grid more resilient and reliable, even as our clapped out coal plants move closer to shut down.
Hope HVDC really takes off, having a power network that has solar feed covering 3 timezones as well as multiple latitudes adds to the national solar harvest and grid resiliency.
Because the individualized incentives do not take into account the community benefits.
The money saved is distributed across the community, for both those that directly benefit and those that can't (eg renters, apartments etc). The general benefit is of greater value than the individual savings.
Your attitude that somehow taxation is theft is a very silly Ayn Randian Objectivism outgrowth that has never been true, even in the most "free" US states.
> Because the individualized incentives do not take into account the community benefits.
Only if the utility company is pricing things incorrectly.
If the price of electricity is ~free during the day and expensive in the evening then the individualized incentives for installing a battery line right up.
> Your attitude that somehow taxation is theft is a very silly Ayn Randian Objectivism outgrowth that has never been true, even in the most "free" US states.
Whether it's theft or not doesn't change the arithmetic. When you're paying them the money they're paying you, it was your money to begin with.
They are, and they are being rapidly rolled out and the "post sunset" spikes are rapidly being flattened by both grid storage and "behind the meter" home batteries.
https://www.amber.com.au/
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