Future of the Australian Electricity Market

[Bushmiller]

Playing Devil's Advocate for a moment, there are a couple of issues with many of these products.


Firstly, and most obviously, they cost a fortune. You can buy a dishwasher for $600, but the cheapest Miele is three times that, and they run up to over $5000. This is the same problem as with heat pump water heaters - when an old style hot tank costs $1000 or so, the additional $4000 investment in a Sanden buys a lot of power. Overall these products may save money, but you have to be able to afford that upfront cost, and (in our disposable, "if it's not new, it's not cool" society) you also have to intend to keep them for many years.

Warb

I am pleased you have mentioned this.

It is a little like the solar panels and batteries. Not everybody has a roof and not everybody has the money. As to the second hand market, many have commented on the difficulty of even giving stuff away. Times have changed since we first started out in adult life.

Regards
Paul

[Bart1080]

Playing Devil's Advocate for a moment, there are a couple of issues with many of these products.
-Firstly, and most obviously, they cost a fortune.
- replacing a functional unit with a new one that saves x% means that the embedded carbon cost of the new one needs to be factored in.
- financial break-even point with PV and batteries being somewhere between "a long time" and "longer than the life of the batteries".

Sooo many good points here. Another point people miss is Gov subsidies - they generally waste hundreds millions of dollars of tax payers money on shonky products/companies just wanting to make easy money on these "save the planet" campaigns and if it wasnt for these millions going to waste with "free" stuff that ultimately we are all paying for, it would never be taken up by the masses due to the upfront cost.

Turned down a "free" $4,000 heatpump when the company said they were going to destroy the electrical components and drill a hole in a perfectly good HWS tank they were removing purely out of principle, and I wanted to re-use the tank to use for another off grid project. I understand the rules were set by the gov, but the logic is insane to destroy and send to landfill a perfectly good piece of equipment.

[GraemeCook]

... For some time vacuum cleaners in the Eu have had a maximum 1200W power draw limit, which has the effect of overall lowering of power consumption. ...

Yep, but it was further reduced to 900W with effect from 1 September 2017.
Vacuum cleaners

Miele are still selling 2,000W C3 model Cat & Dog Vacuums in Australia.
Complete C3 Cat & Dog Bagged Vacuum Cleaner | Bagged Cylinder Vacuum Cleaners | online shop

[GraemeCook]

Sooo many good points here. Another point people miss is Gov subsidies - they generally waste hundreds millions of dollars of tax payers money on shonky products/companies just wanting to make easy money ...

So true. Remember the roof insulation debacle?

We booked an appointment with a planet saver and they sent along their expert consultant who happened to be known to us - that phrase sounds much more ominous when used by the Police. We reasoned that if expert consultant was involved, then it was not for us.

A neighbour was not so prescient.

[Optimark]

Playing Devil's Advocate for a moment, there are a couple of issues with many of these products.


Firstly, and most obviously, they cost a fortune. You can buy a dishwasher for $600, but the cheapest Miele is three times that, and they run up to over $5000. This is the same problem as with heat pump water heaters - when an old style hot tank costs $1000 or so, the additional $4000 investment in a Sanden buys a lot of power. Overall these products may save money, but you have to be able to afford that upfront cost, and (in our disposable, "if it's not new, it's not cool" society) you also have to intend to keep them for many years.


Secondly, the eco cycles tend to take forever to run. In our house we have energy and water saving laundry appliances. They do, I have no doubt, save both water and electricity, but they don't save time. To use the "most saving-est" cycles takes hours longer than the standard cycles on an older machine, which is a problem if you're trying to do all the family's clothes and bedding on a Saturday morning....


There's actually a third issue, which as is the case with many of these "save the planet" products, relates to marketing and usage. The marketing says the product uses x% less power, and under a fixed set of circumstances that's true. But in the bigger equation, replacing a functional unit with a new one that saves x% means that the embedded carbon cost of the new one needs to be factored in. It has taken energy to make and transport the new product, so how long will the savings take to recoup those costs? Will it actually be kept long enough for that to happen? And will it be used in the correct manner to achieve those savings, given that the savings may apply to one specific "cycle" which may not be the one chosen - those energy saving washing machines still retain the high energy usage "boil washes" of old.


The marketing also often relies on "assumptions" which can vary enormously - the estimated break-even point (in carbon terms) for a Tesla Model 3 varies between the 15,000-25,000km suggested by Reuters, through 150,000km suggested by Damien Ernst (University of Liege) up to 700,000km (Ernsts original estimate, later revised downwards). We've already discussed the financial break-even point with PV and batteries being somewhere between "a long time" and "longer than the life of the batteries", but both financial and carbon break-even points are often quite long, and indeed may never actually be reached!


The other big problem of having the entire "save the climate" movement being driven by the desire for corporate profit, is that by necessity it involves selling something, whether the something is a dishwasher or the power itself. The power companies don't really want you to use less power, that cuts their profits (unless they jack-up the price). And the manufactures of dishwashers will say and do anything to get you to buy a new dishwasher. The end result is that neither organisation will tell you the truth, which is that the greatest saving for water, power and money is probably to keep your old appliance but only run it on a low temperature cycle when it's actually full!! When that old appliance finally dies, replace it with an energy and water saving unit, but don't bother replacing it simply because the new version is a tiny bit better..

Warb, in general I agree with you.

However with dishwashers one doesn't need to spend shedloads to get an efficient model. But within reason one would expect there to be a much longer life for a more expensive product, but I know this is not always the case, but it can be.

Firstly, dishwasher cost versus efficiency.

Splurge vs save: Cheaper dishwashers that outshine expensive ones | CHOICE

Now to some personal purchases. 51 years ago my wife purchased her first kitchen mixer, actually her only kitchen mixer purchase. She bought a Krups 3000 hand mixer, which could be accessorised up to a reasonably capable unit. Some of the accessories available were a bench top mounted bowl arrangement. What she purchased though was the mixer, which came with a pair of normal mixing blades, she added a pair of dough blades, the cream mixing bowl and the food atomiser which attaches to the rear of the machine.

She has used this on a very regular basis since first purchasing and since 1984, we have been using this mixer reasonably heavily. It is finally starting to die and even though I have pulled it apart and cleaned it, it now seems to be living on borrowed time. When my wife bought this mixer, it was the most expensive unit available, but as it did everything and at a much reduced price compared to benchtop units, she thought it was worth saving up for.

Our current dishwasher (Miele) is about 30 years old and still going strong. It did cost an eye watering $2000 when we purchased it and we thought long and hard about it. It replaced my first dishwasher, which was a benchtop dishwasher which was the cheapest and nastiest unit imaginable. That benchtop dishwasher used very little water, didn't have a heating element; so one turned on the hot water for the first intake of water, then switched to the cold water immediately after that first intake of water. Wash cycles were about 30 minutes from memory and I had it for 20 years. We donated it to a person in need of help and I understand it was in daily use for about another 5 years.

We replaced our HWS 20 months ago, we spent top dollar for a heat pump unit, Sanden compressor made in Japan with the stainless steel tank made in Moorabbin Australia. It replaced a top dollar Aquamax that was made in Moorabbin Australia which lasted around 28-29 years.

This week our next door neighbour purchased their fourth HWS in the same time frame. They purchased a heat pump glass lined all in one unit manufactured in Sydney. Their three previous HWS were all cheap gas powered glass lined units, one of which only lasted 7 years. We had an interesting over the fence discussion regarding HWS a few days ago.

I do get that the sometimes quite expensive solutions being offered are almost impossible for some people to purchase, either because they don't have the money or the roof space for PV panels, or the money for a house battery, but by and large as the top tier products push the development window, the middle and bottom tier products are dragged upwards bit by bit, and this must be good for the country.

We are now on the lookout for a replacement for our Krups handheld mixer, it may take some time to find, it may be expensive; but not necessarily so, and, it should see us out if many of our past purchases are any indication.

Mick.

Krups_001.jpg

[Warb]

Our current dishwasher (Miele) is about 30 years old and still going strong. It did cost an eye watering $2000 when we purchased it and we thought long and hard about it.

Sometimes it works, but even the "best" is getting worse...

We had a Miele dishwasher for 23 years, it was still going strong when we left it in the farmhouse when I retired. We also had nearly 20 years out of a Miele washer and dryer, but the replacements (also Miele) weren't as good. The energy saving dryer was especially poor, taking hours (literally) to get clothes to something approaching "dry". I wouldn't buy another Miele washer or dryer.

We had a Miele microwave that constantly failed, Miele fixed it repeatedly, only to have it fail again. Eventually fixed by a guy in Dubbo (not Miele) who, I suspect, simply bypassed some of the door safety interlocks. A Miele pyrolytic oven that broke three times in 10 years, the last time a "known issue" of failing to unlock after pyro clean cycle. Miele can't fix (parts no longer available) so they provide a bent wire "key" to get the door open...... The Miele gas cooktop worked 100%, but all the knobs became brittle and fell apart, replaced by Miele twice (second time cost $) after which we patched them with epoxy.

On the other hand, in the cottage on the farm (before we built the house) we fitted a F+P oven which was DOA. F+P declared it was close to Christmas (mid December) and their repair team would look at it mid- January. Luckily Harvey Norman swapped it for another they had in stock so we could cook Christmas lunch. Never buying F+P again! The replacement F+P oven lasted about 8 years before the door hinges started to fall apart.

Having said all that, I'm currently renovating the kitchen in our new house, and have installed a Miele dishwasher, induction cooktop, oven and warming drawer. I did not buy a Miele microwave, fridge or laundry appliances!

I have always believed in buying a good product and keeping it for a long time. It used to work most of the time, but these days I'm not so sure. Certainly the cheap stuff only lasts until you lose the receipt, but even the better, more expensive items don't seem to last the way they used to. My suspicion is that the world has changed and that (many of?) the people who can afford the top end items can also afford to replace them when they start to look dated/used, or when it ceases to impress their friends... I've also noticed that the designs change very frequently, and spare parts availability isn't great.

The corporate mantra of constant growth isn't served by producing things that last a long time!

[Mr Brush]

One thing to bear in mind - with the big name brands like Miele, you'll find that some of their "lesser" appliances such as microwaves are often made by someone else and just rebadged. Also, when looking at the various models from a particular company, it pays to look at the country of manufacture. We've settled on Bosch for a lot of our appliances, but have been careful to select from their product range the items which were actually made in Germany (e.g. Series 6 and up). A lot of their lower end products are manufactured in Turkey, Poland, or Spain to meet the required price point, and these tend not to get reviewed as favourably as their higher end stuff.

This reminds me of Scheppach woodworking machines; the boxes are plastered with "Designed in Germany" logos, desperately trying to distract from the fact that the manufacturing is all in lowest possible cost Chinese factories, with exactly the quality (or lack thereof) you'd expect.

[doug3030]

... And will it be used in the correct manner to achieve those savings, given that the savings may apply to one specific "cycle" which may not be the one chosen - those energy saving washing machines still retain the high energy usage "boil washes" of old.

A few years back, when I still had adult children living at home, we got a new dishwasher with an "economy" cycle.
My "save the planet" millennial offspring would use the "economy" setting on the rare occasions that they started the dishwasher. It would not clean the dishes properly so we had to waste+ another cycle and another detergent tablet to get them clean. It took a long time to convince them just to put it on one of the "full" cycles because one cycle has to be cheaper than two.

My suspicion is that the world has changed and that (many of?) the people who can afford the top end items can also afford to replace them when they start to look dated/used, or when it ceases to impress their friends... I've also noticed that the designs change very frequently, and spare parts availability isn't great.

Not sure that's new, Warb.

I'm sure I spent most of my life going to work at a job I disliked to make money to give to my wife to buy things we didn't need to impress people we didn't even like.

[Warb]

I'm sure I spent most of my life going to work at a job I disliked to make money to give to my wife to buy things we didn't need to impress people we didn't even like.

But now you can impress people that you've never even met, by posting pictures of your breakfast on Faceboast.........

[doug3030]

But now you can impress people that you've never even met, by posting pictures of your breakfast on Faceboast.........

I could - but I don't.

[Warb]

I could - but I don't.

I don't think my daily bowl of Uncle Toby's muesli would impress many people, although I have taken to scattering a few blueberries on top, so who knows?!

[Bushmiller]

A little bit more on Nukes in this article and how certain elements are spouting forth without any real comprehension of realities:

The right’s nuclear stupidity is enough to make us cough up Phlegm Orville (msn.com)

Regards
Paul

[Warb]

A little bit more on Nukes in this article and how certain elements are spouting forth without any real comprehension of realities:

I often wonder whether journalists do themselves any favours by including statements such as "...the AFR or Dutton — both of whom like to whine about too much government spending —". To me, when you include comments like that you instantly remove any pretence of being impartial, which then calls into question any "factual" statements made. Obviously regular readers of whatever source produced the article will already know, and presumably agree with, any political or idealist leaning, but as a new reader I don't. If I read an article that comes across as well-researched, unbiased and factual I tend to pay far more attention to it than to one that includes personal attacks and derogatory names, or in any other way seems obviously "motivated" towards one side or the other.

It also fascinates me how many of these articles focus on the history of nuclear generators taking a long time to build and going massively over budget. It's not that the statement is inherently untrue, it's simply that I'm not sure there has ever been a government project that has been completed on-time or on-budget......

[Davich]

A little bit more on Nukes in this article and how certain elements are spouting forth without any real comprehension of realities:

The right’s nuclear stupidity is enough to make us cough up Phlegm Orville (msn.com)

Regards
Paul

Heheh, ol Crikey strikes again, nuke bad and over priced, solar good and cheap..............except when it is not, why did not Bernard Kean mention the Kogan Creek solar boost $76.2 million dollar flop that not only has been abandoned but has now been totally scrapped without producing a single watt?
The lies that are put forward about "renewables" is astounding, simple fact remains if there is no base load power on tap the entire grid falls over, better yet just shut down all coal fired power stations for a week and see what happens eh? Just to note though I have been totally off grid for over 10 plus years however that is my choice and which I have paid for out of my own pocket, have a look at the waffle in the link below, just another money grifting project for the gullible to soak up, just to note the report advises it cost $76.2M and was completed in March 2016...............no mention it was actually Abandoned and Scrapped.

Kogan Creek Solar Boost Project - Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA)

Snip from the page

Summary

The Kogan Creek Solar Boost Project set out to install a 44 megawatts of concentrating solar power (CSP) at CS Energy’s 750 megawatt coal-fired Kogan Creek Power Station.

Project innovation

The project intended to demonstrate the hybridisation of solar thermal and coal-fired power generation on a large scale, and provide key insights into the construction and operation of hybrid renewable/fossil thermal plants.
Benefit

Valuable insights gained during the project will be used to strengthen future renewable energy developments.
A bit more insight on this from the SMH no less.

'Fast-moving clouds': How CS Energy's Kogan Creek Solar Boost project failed (smh.com.au)

[Mr Brush]

Look, Australia has basically lost the ability to complete large civil engineering projects to a good quality, on time, and on budget. We can't do it anymore. I just read that the costs of Snowy 2.0 (already years behind schedule) are now expected to DOUBLE. I've had some very minor peripheral involvement on Snowy 2.0 as a consultant (trying to fix something they've already stuffed up), but stopped doing work for them when the scale of their incompetence became obvious. Good $$$ to be made, but I just don't want them as a client ! Nucular?? (sic) - you have to be joking !!