Switchwise.com.au Blog

Archive for the ‘Green Energy’ Category

Energy prices might triple by 2020

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Origin Energy’s CEO, Grant King, is concerned that Australian energy prices might triple over the next 10 years. According to an article in The Australian, Mr King thinks that there are many reasons to expect energy prices to skyrocket:

  • Uncertainty over the federal government’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) resulting in investment in higher cost wind- and gas-powered generation;
  • Mandatory targets for renewable-energy generation;
  • Increased electricity transmission and distribution costs due to the need to invest in more infrastructure to support generation from renewables; and
  • Higher input fuel costs (e.g. coal & natural gas).

Mr Grant said that the average consumer is not helping either, using more and more energy by buying energy-inefficient appliances such as plasma TVs.

So it looks like the party might eventually be over for Australian households – historically we have enjoyed some of the cheapest energy costs in the developed world but in the decade to come we might end up forking out as much as consumers in countries like the UK.

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Google gains approval to sell power in the US

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

The United States Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has given Google the green light to sell electricity and related services in the US. You might rightly wonder why Google would want to get into the power business and act as a utility – you think they would have better ways to make money.

Google says it wants to make itself carbon-neutral. Given the large number of data centres it operates, with probably thousands of servers in each, one could imagine the grand scale of Google’s electricity consumption. According to Google’s official blog, Google’s engineers did some analysis and found that an average Google search query consumes “about 1 kilojoule of energy and emits about 0.2 grams of carbon dioxide”. Obviously each search is tiny in isolation but multiply this figure by the billions of searches that it handles and it is clearly a big deal.

FERC’s approval gives Google the right to install as many solar panels as it likes in its quest to achieve carbon-neutrality. It also means that should Google generate lots of surplus solar power it could effectively resell this on the market; in other words Google could become a solar power generator and a net contributor to the electricity grid.

Google is already involved in energy in many ways, with applications like Google PowerMeter to assist consumers better manage their household energy consumption directly from their iGoogle homepage. Google has already signed up ten utility companies in North America and Europe to allow smart meters in their customers’ homes communicate with PowerMeter. There are also a couple of companies such as AlertMe in the UK selling self-install power management devices that are pre-configured to work with Google PowerMeter.

However, Google’s motives might not be entirely altruistic in helping the world use less energy; there is no doubt an excellent opportunity for Google to position itself as a large scale provider of energy management services to consumers and businesses around the world.

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Jackgreen enters voluntary administration

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Jackgreen, Australia’s only dedicated GreenPower electricity retailer, today announced that it placed itself into voluntary administration. This action is a result of Integral Energy’s wind-up action on 8th December in respect of an unpaid bill of more than $800,000. Jackgreen reportedly spent the past fortnight trying to secure further funding of $3-$5 million but was unable to do so.

On Friday, 18 December the Australian Energy Market Operator suspended Jackgreen from trading in the National Energy Market. This means that from 19 December Jackgreen customers were automatically transferred to another electricity retailer according to the rules of their State’s Retailer of Last Resort Schemes:

Jackgreen customers need not worry – their electricity supply will continue uninterrupted. Customers will be advised in writing to which company they will be transferred, as well as the pricing and terms and conditions applicable to the contract with their new supplier. Customers are usually free to switch from their newly appointed retailer to another power supplier of their choice.

If you are a Jackgreen customer we strongly suggest you wait to receive a letter from the new electricity supplier to which you have been transferred and then use Switchwise to compare your new provider’s power prices against other offers available on the market and switch to a cheaper deal if one is available.

Jackgreen’s plans have been removed from the Switchwise website.

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