<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/bizarre-planning-rules-that-force-new-home-owners-to-pay-for-gas-connections-whether-they-want-it-or-not/>
"South Australia leads the country, and the world, in the uptake of rooftop
solar – but it seems that builders are still locking 60 per cent of new homes
in South Australia into the fossil gas network, despite falling gas demand and
in the face of thousands of dollars of new connection costs.
The new finding by the McKell Institute, a think tank, highlights a bizarre
situation for a state which has been at the bleeding edge of rooftop solar tech
for years.
More than half of the state’s homes have rooftop solar, and the output from
these PV generators regularly accounts for 100 per cent or more of state
electricity demand, forcing networks to innovate on integration technology and
ideas.
And yet it is struggling to kick fossil gas, according to the McKell
Institute’s new paper
Connecting to gas is changing; so should SA’s planning
laws.
“Changes to gas pricing mean the economics of household connections are
shifting,” said the McKell Institute’s Hannah MacLeod.
“Planning laws need to change to align with current market conditions and
household preferences.
“Updating planning settings to make gas connections opt-in, rather than
default, would give homebuyers clearer choices and help them avoid unnecessary
costs.”
The problem is that gas demand is falling by 5.5 per cent in every household
across the state, every year, according to estimates by Australian Gas
Networks.
But a rule change last year means that from October gas connection fees of
around $4,500 in South Australia will be charged directly to every buyer of a
new home rather than socialised across gas networks – whether they want the gas
or not.
Add in the cost of including separate infrastructure to run gas in a house in
addition to electricity, and the paper estimates that gas is set to add an
extra $8000 to the price of a new build home – money that could have been spent
on solar panels and a battery."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
