Future of the Australian Electricity Market

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

... perhaps the induction tops will replicate the controllability of gas.

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We went with an induction cooktop over twenty years ago and my wife would now have nothing else. She had us remove a new gas hob and replace it with an induction cooktop when we moved into our current house fifteen years ago. Happy wife, happy life!

In our experience they are quick (they directly heat the pan, not the hob), are very controllable (from as low as 1, which would take forever to fry an egg, and up to 9 (on ours) that will have the pot boiling as quick as gas.

And, they are easy to clean (that's my job) because the hob doesn't get hot like other cooktops. We place a piece of paper towel on the hob and the pan on top of that... which helps to keep the hob clean ... and, if the contents aren't burning, neither does the paper towel...:)

The one issue for people in my/our generation in changing over to induction cooking is that the pan bottoms need to contain magnetic iron, which most newer cookware does, but that may not be the case with all of the cookware that you have had for the last 50yrs.

Some people say that the induction tops don't do as good a job with Wok cooking. Some have a single gas burner just for that, but, in our experience, a good induction top wok does a reasonable job.

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Originally Posted by NeilS

Some people say that the induction tops don't do as good a job with Wok cooking. Some have a single gas burner just for that, but, in our experience, a good induction top wok does a reasonable job.

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It.... may take some more convincing for me to give up gas stovetop cooking. Apart from the minimal (miniscule?) impact on global heating which I'm sure could be easily absorbed into nett zero, one of the things I like to be able to do with gas stove cooking is to be able to lift the pan/pot up off the cooktop a wee bit, but still get some heat happening.

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

The rates on the left are fixed rate, the right is my current variable plan.

Attachment 512530

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Now that screen shot displays something that I just don't get at all.

Why does the supply charge -- which ostensibly pays for the poles, wires and metering -- vary between the fixed cost and variable pricing plans?
Electricity, and for that matter gas, all need a connection to the source of supply. The poles and wires for electricity or the in street gas main.
So on what basis can those fixed supply costs vary between plans?

I'm holding my breath -- well not literally -- waiting for a rational response.


To me variable supply charges looks to be nothing more than very very tricky marketing. Or should I just say an outright lie?

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Originally Posted by NeilS

... Some people say that the induction tops don't do as good a job with Wok cooking. Some have a single gas burner just for that, but, in our experience, a good induction top wok does a reasonable job.

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Both my wife and I like cooking, and we did a lot of research into this issue when we were planning a new kitchen ten years ago. Two issues that we were considering were:

• gas or induction cooktop, and
• wok burner or not.

Surprisingly, a Chinese friend advised us against installing a wok burner, on the surprising grounds that it would disappoint us.

Both Kai Wing and his wife are very good cooks and we have enjoyed many meals with them. Then they bought a small restaurant and found that they were cooking better in the restaurant than at home. The difference was commercial vs domestic wok burners, so they installed a commercial wok burner on a stainless steel bench at home and their cooking went up a notch from extremely good. Brilliant.

While researching our then planned kitchen we looked at both wok burners and cooktops with wok burners:

• The largest available domestic wok burners then had an output of 25 mJ,
• The smallest then available commercial wok burner was 100 mJ and they ranged up to 400 mJ, and
• Induction wok burners (domestic) were rated slightly lower than gas.

It was too difficult to incorporate a commercial wok burner into our kitchen so we eventually with a gas cooktop with a 25 mJ wok burner.

I increasingly wish that we had a much larger wok burner; I can cook significantly better in Kai Wing's kitchen than my own. As he repeatedly says, "If stir frying takes more than 60 seconds then turn the heat up more!" and "Keep the food moving."

On wok burners, go to the Chinese food supply stores. Near the steamers and scoops they usually sell 3 and 4 ring burners.

They are BEASTS. Ugly - but they put out heat like crazy.

Here is a local ripoff: High Pressure 4 Ring Burner 72MJ/h LPG Gas 6.9kPa but they are normally about $40-50 in the stores.

Attachment 512561

edit: they have one for $70, which is sort of OK on price but it does come with a hose.... Gasmate Cast Iron Ring Burner - MyDeal

Attachment 512562

My daughter is also with Reamped who are telling customers to go elsewhere. Massive advertising campaign to get the customers to switch now, or face price rises of 100% or more.

Today they sweetened the deal and offered her a $100 voucher if she switched.

They must be seriously under water financially if they are now paying people to go. There must be some problem with simply jacking up the price. Is there some legislated cap for prices? I can’t think of another reason why they’d do this. I don’t believe the marketing hype that they are using about wanting to be honest and straightforward.

I’ve already switched, without the offer of a $100 voucher.

cheers,

ajw

Quite a few isssues have been raised in the last few threads.

The so-called wok burners as Graeme has identified are just not up to the job on the domestic front. I do have one of those multi rings gas burners WP posted, but have never actually used it.

The retiallers that are advising people to go elsewhere for their power are paying the penalty for not having contracts to safeguard their pricing. there is some cap that is set so prices cannot be raised without limitation and I am guessing that this cap would leave the retaillers still well out of pocket: Hence the $100 incentive to move on. There is a good chance that those companies will not survive so I would difinitely look elsewhere for my supplier.

The use of gas is contentious. It is a carbon emitting fossil fuel. To say that the small limited use of domestic gas is inconsequential in the big scheme of things is sympathetic to the climate denialist line that Australia is a small player in the world of emissions ( despite being the largest emitter per capita). Before I am accused of being purist, I wneed to declare, again, that we have gas for our cooktop and in sentencing I wish my use of our wood fired chimenea to be taken into consideration too: Used as an open grill (the hyperbolic section is removable) it cooks better tasting food than anything else we have at out disposable. However, it is undeniable that I am making excuses for my contirbution to CO2 emissions. When we replace the stove it will be electric: I don't know what I will do about the chiminea. :(

In the last week wholesale prices on the spot market have been up around $350/Mwhr (35c/Kwhr). Retail prices as shown in FenceFurniture's post are around 27c/kwhr. On this showing and if no easing of the market occurs (I am not sure how it can other than a slight reduction in demand during Spring, which is a way off) as contracts become renewable I can see the retail price easily going to 50c/Kwhr.

Regards
Paul

Co2 is an issue, Paul: if you have a gas heater and live in, say, Thredbo or Liaweene, then you will probably run said heater for 24 hours per day, and produce a lot of CO2.

An adequately powered wok should complete a stir-fry in less than 60 seconds. Morally, I can live with that amount of CO2.

Here are a couple of links that confirm much of the conversations we have already had.

Government blames Coalition for energy price rises | Watch (msn.com)

Failure of coal leaves us stuck with gas as a very expensive transition fuel (msn.com)

The second link refers to coal failure both from breakdowns due to ageing units and the climate. The climate and the difficulty in actually mining the coal is an interesting one. My own station has had some difficulty with this. Another weather related problem has caused a scheduled outage (we are pedanticl with our maintenance programmes) caused a very unusual extension to the outage. A large crane was in position to lift a component in through the top of the boiler and was unable to do this because of continued wet weather. A weeks delay that was not seen coming!

Regards
Paul

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Here are a couple of links that confirm much of the conversations we have already had.

Government blames Coalition for energy price rises | Watch (msn.com)

Failure of coal leaves us stuck with gas as a very expensive transition fuel (msn.com)

The second link refers to coal failure both from breakdowns due to ageing units and the climate. The climate and the difficulty in actually mining the coal is an interesting one. My own station has had some difficulty with this. Another weather related problem has caused a scheduled outage (we are pedanticl with our maintenance programmes) caused a very unusual extension to the outage. A large crane was in position to lift a component in through the top of the boiler and was unable to do this because of continued wet weather. A weeks delay that was not seen coming!

Regards
Paul

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There is another factor at play in all this and that is solar production on the East Coast and possibly further afield is down hugely and this will obviously drive up grid usage during this winter.

It's not costing us 4 times the amount to dig up coal or extract gas, but because of international pricing, the price is jumping. So somebody somewhere in this process is making some super profits.

ajw

50 more of these farms would be a good start!

MacIntyre Wind Precinct'''s construction begins, soon to be Australia'''s largest wind farm - ABC News

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

50 more of these farms would be a good start! ...

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But I want to switch my lights on when it gets dark.

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Originally Posted by ian

To me variable supply charges looks to be nothing more than very very tricky marketing. Or should I just say an outright lie?

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I think the usage charge is the "Welcome, come on in!" and the supply charge is "Here's the bill."

Caveat emptor.

mick

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Originally Posted by ajw

It's not costing us 4 times the amount to dig up coal or extract gas, but because of international pricing, the price is jumping. So somebody somewhere in this process is making some super profits.

ajw

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yep, coal mines don't want to sell to the coal fired power stations as they can get FAR better money exporting it.

coal fired power stations have to roll back production to conserve coal, this creates demand... this drives prices up. the other side to that is that coal mines will sell to a power station but the cost is ALOT higher, so the power station either sells at a higher price (passed on to customers) or shuts down as they can't stay viable.