Households
switch on to green power
Link: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/public-switched-on-to-green-power/2007/08/12/1186857348286.html
AUSTRALIANS are backing their commitment to fight climate
change with their wallets, spending as much as $400 extra a year to go for
green power.
Despite a lack
of federal support for renewable energy, green power sales have surged.
In NSW alone
the number of customers paying extra for renewable energy to be fed into the
grid on their behalf has more than doubled in the past six months and more than
tripled in the 12 months to June.
Nearly 8 per
cent of all Australian households choose to pay more for power to ensure it is
environmentally friendly.
For the average
family, a 100 per cent commitment to green power could cost up to $400 extra a
year. For customers buying 10 per cent green power for their homes - the
minimum offered by energy retailers - more than $50 a year is added to their
electricity bills.
The public
enthusiasm for renewable energy has prevented nearly 4.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions entering the atmosphere
every year, says the GreenPower office.
"That's
equivalent to taking 930,000 cars off the road and is five times the emission
reduction achieved by the Federal Government's phase-out of incandescent light
bulbs," said the Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Tony Mohr.
In February the federal Minister for the Environment, Malcolm Turnbull,
announced that the Government would phase out energy-intensive incandescent
bulbs by 2009-10, saving up to 800,000 tonnes of
greenhouse gas emissions.
The rise in
sales of green power has coincided with heightened public awareness of the
dangers of climate change due in great part to the drought, to the film An
Inconvenient Truth, and to a British Treasury report last year by Sir
Nicholas Stern on the costs of ignoring it.
The GreenPower scheme was started by the NSW Government in 1997
in consultation with the energy industry and environment groups. The scheme was
extended nationally three years later.
To be eligible,
renewable energy projects must have begun after 1997 to ensure they are selling
new green power into the electricity grid, rather than reselling renewable
energy that has been in the system for many years. Only that way can consumers
be sure that the electricity they are paying for is cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Householders
who buy green power are paying for a certain amount of electricity to come from
a renewable, clean source. Homes are not directly powered by wind or solar
energy. The Federal Government's renewable energy target also helped displace
polluting coal-fired electricity. The target increased investment in
environmentally friendly power by requiring 2 per cent of electricity come from
renewable sources.
However, that
target has been met, and the Government has not committed to increasing it. The
Federal Opposition has said it will increase the target but has not said by how
much.
Mr Mohr said the Government and the Opposition should not squander the
public's efforts.
"The
Federal Government needs to catch up with ordinary Australians by committing to
25 per cent green power for
"The US
House of Representatives recently passed a bill requiring energy companies to
provide 15 per cent of electricity from renewables by
2020, but our Government has refused to extend its 2 per cent target, and has
even indicated it might scrap existing renewable energy targets once an
emissions trading scheme is introduced. The Opposition says it supports a
renewable energy target but hasn't said what that target should be."