Wow where I live is starting to get darker every night. More houses and flats have the lights out or one dim light in one room. Our bill jumped by about 20% and is touching $500 a quarter. This is up from about $300 a year or so ago. Consumption is dropping but the bill keeps increasing. It feels like the only real option in the future will be to try to go completely solar with a generator and batteries and then ask for the mains connection to be severed.
Sure its not all due to the carbon tax but adding the cost of that to all the other costs, plus having a consumption tax on a carbon tax doesn't seem fair.
Meanwhile they are exporting millions of tonnes of coal as quickly as they can dig it out and ship it off to whoever wants to burn it. I've heard South Korea has cheaper electricity than Australia and they import amost all of the fuel they need to generate electricity.
I know a lot of pensioners around here that have turned off their hot water system and have been having cold showers for a year or two now.
Yes there are going to many side affects of electricty skyrocketing in cost. More people living in colder houses in winter leading to health issues. Increased stress for people struggling to make ends meet. Conflict between family members.
Its been documented that electricty consumption has been reducing over recent times, for the first time ever. Despite this regulators allow electricty companies to "gold plate" their networks and then pass the cost onto the consumer. Personally I was pretty happy with the electricty supply when it may have been tin or copper plated.
It is and always have been about keeping the rich on one level and the poor...poor..and if they can poorer ...I suppose that will and has worked till people will just break!
and at the level of rage you see day to day...I wonder what the end result might be!
I earn good money and don't stress about paying the power bill when it comes it (about $130 per two month bill cycle), I'll admit thats not much of a bill but that's because there is nothing wrong with leaving the heater off and putting a jumper on instead. It's not just the poor pensioners doing it.
Just got ours a short time ago, $405 as compared to $254 the quarter before 
and we're not what I'd call a power eating house by any stretch of the imagination, lights off when not used, minimal electrical device use period. The funny thing is they reckon we've used a lot more "units" of power than last quarter but im really not seeing that.....
Are we really hardly done by?
Since I heard often the exact same complaints in other countries, for about the same $2k per year, I looked up a bit.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing seems to show that we're paying about the same as other G20 countries, i.e. USA, Germany, France, UK, Holland, Italy, Spain, etc.
I have no idea how people have such high power bills, a friend at Redcliffe is always around 400-600 a qtr. Mind you the 4 Tv's are running alot.
Been in Nth Brisbane for 6 years now and my power bill has gone from $160 a qtr to $175 a qtr, yet I have welders/grinders, rc batt chargers going non stop (around 9hrs @5amps a day) big tv, 6 loads of washing a week. I'm stoked.
Every time some door to door guy comes up and says I can beat your current price, I show him the bill and say beat that. They are just amazed and have nothing to offer.
U had your chance to speak up! Now put up.
Wait until CO2/ton gets to $100... I've hedged my bets.
It's annoying that we're told to save power, we do and then get charged double for it. If they were making profits after running costs just a few years back and now they're grossing double, where is all our money going, I'm sure their running costs haven't doubled, and if they had their profits would have at least doubled as well. Blatant revenue raising BS like saying speed cameras are for safety, and why have rates doubled as well, tax is becoming a very dirty word.
WA had twice the number of flu cases compared to last year, wonder if people not being able to afford to heat their house had a bearing on this, I'd think so.
Why do people hate pollies? because they deserve it.
I think it's more like the government being the owners or majority owners, skim the profits as their tax base is shrinking due to the property market slow down etc. And while their may be limited competition between retailers, the generators and network owners set the price. So the more the government takes out the smaller the profit.....up go the prices.
Your electricity bill is basically another way to pay tax!
You all have the option of voting out the government
that introduced the carbon tax. But be careful, no more
stimulus cheques from the other mob. Oh what to do!
Just checked my letterbox and electricity bill for last 56 days has gone up from previous bill of $82 to $119
Corporate fascism where the corporations are the rulers.
Good job it's not too cold in Spain as nearly 25 percent are unemployed,over 50 percent youth unemployed.
Watched A Place In The Sun other week, couple reckon they spend 45 to 50 pound per quarter or per month, on gas in the UK. In the Caribbean where they were also looking to buy, average gas price for same period was only 4 to 5 pound,something fishy going on.
Can see a time in the very near future where turning a light bulb and TV on for the night will cost you a packet. Not a bad idea actually,will help to quell those nutjobs out there that believe everything they hear and see on the TV.
I have mentioned it before.
The CSIRO ran a 12 month experiment 35+ years ago in Canberra that proved there is no reason for any stand alone household to be on the power grid. (Except for the general public subsidising industry of course.[}:)])
Here is some more NWO bulldust. What they did not achieve in Copenhagen, they did in Durban.
www.mail.com/int/business/economy/
Your power bill getting a bit heavy?? You ain't seen nothin' yet.
WHY WHINGE ??.....convert your house [whatever] to 12volt batteries with a couple of solar panels and maybe a standby wind generator. Just like a good caravan there is nothing unavailable..........DO IT........
A range of factors are pushing up prices.
One view of the world: www.ena.asn.au/udocs/2012/02/ENA-media-release-many-factors-push-up-prices-12-April-2012.pdf
As they rightly point out, people with solar systems are being subsidised by the rest through the RECs.
And every time a split system air conditioner gets installed, its something like a $7000 subsidy due to the increased network infrastructure to meet the peak demand (these tend to only run for about 3 - 4 weeks a year, but the network to serve these will still need to sit there for the rest of the year)(www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/dms/cec/factsheets/CEC_PRICE_FACTSv10/CEC%2520Energy%2520update )
And the need to replace aging networks is also in play.
And then there is the potential for the government to use ownership as a tax, or the network monopolies themselves becoming better at challenging price determinations...
As ever in any policy debate, no simple answers, no one thing.
The gas power generator would be pretty cool if you own a farm that had gas deposits on it.
I have not paid power bill for 5 years since living on a boat. 3 new batterys last year cost me $750 + $500 for solar panel and the odd bit of fuel for the gen and diesel engine all good! Oh and sell the car that's the next expense that just goes up and up!
I have turned the gas hot water system down to vaccation.[as my neighbour does]
Each morning when i want to have a hot shower,i walk out naked into the backyard and turn it up to hot.
Wait 10 mins,enjoy a nice warm shower, then before drying myself,i go out into yard again to turn it back to vaccation.
Nothing like a bit of intuition/exposure to get those bills down.
First powerbill after I put 5kw solar system on $43:) and the system was only operation for the 2nd half of the quarter. It's costing me $50 a week for 40 months but saving me $30/week and I calculate you guys with out solar will be paying me about 200/quarter cause I feed in much more then I use. 
