Energy efficiency reality

I recently had cause to write to our Bass Coast Shire Council (BCSC) Mayor regarding the Shire’s efforts to facilitate Energy Efficiency in our community.  

Regardless of your views concerning climate-change, the 2019 Climate-Emergency or the renewable energy revolution; the reality is simple.  

The reality is that energy costs are going up.  The rate of that increase in electricity costs will be governed by State and Federal government actions towards our energy generation and infrastructure.  

The running costs of your homes are rising and will continue to rise into the foreseeable future.  

Improving the Energy Efficiency of your home means that each dollar you spend on electricity will go further to heating your water, cooking and maintaining a comfortable temperature within your home.  
Our BCSC has spent a lot of your rates developing their Community Action Portal (CAP) so they can show what a great job they are doing to address the declared climate emergency in Bass Coast.  

The problem is that this CAP is designed to support Community Action against Climate Change and it has allocated a lot of money to make the Shire’s Corporate activities look clean and green by 2030. 

But there is precious little money directed towards assisting individual householders to improve their energy efficiency by 2030.  

Some people might call this green-washing by Bass Coast Shire Council and the CAP’s projected figures on future performance and costings, show very little improvement in the energy efficiency of individual households during the next decade.

Other shires have assisted their ratepayers with technical advice and bulk buying of photovoltaic systems and insulation to make energy efficiency and generation more affordable.  

This Bass Coast Shire Council lacks the vision, plan and desire to assist its householders with the coming challenges and changes to our energy infrastructure.  

There are huge financial opportunities for householders to participate in Virtual Power Plants by utilizing renewable energy and battery storage within a mini-grid by means of smart software.  

Bass Coast Shire Council seem content to sit and watch its community remain victims of greedy domestic power companies.

If a professional pollster was to walk down Graham Street, Wonthaggi and interview 100 people on the benefits of Virtual Power Plants they would be lucky to get a single positive reply.  

This is part of the challenge for Bass Coast Shire Council and without responsible leadership you will all be so much poorer.

Edward Minty, North Wonthaggi