Daily Archives: May 19, 2008

A personal journey – a green home

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After having finished my MBA and living in Australia for 3 years now, we have gained our permanent residency through the Skilled migration program of the Australian government.

This has prompted us to make some decisions. One such decision is about the city where we would live. We have been living in Adelaide for the past 3 years. Adelaide is a relatively smaller city with a population of just over a million people. In terms of job opportunities, it is relatively less compared to say Sydney and Melbourne or the booming cities of Brisbane and Perth.

Even in this environment we both (my wife and myself) have had a decent life and some good career opportunities. Considering the cost of living, the size of the city, our connections and friends made here; we have decided to stay on in Adelaide for the time being. Unless some fantastic opportunity comes along for us, we would not think of moving.

In some ways, Adelaide can provide us with more opportunities. For example: green drinks. Green Drinks is a worldwide networking event happening in various cities across the country. I wanted to attend one in Adelaide and guess what, it was not here. This prompted me to explore the opportunity of setting up one here. I am in the course of doing this with another enthusiastic friend of mine. More details will be coming soon. The point is that Adelaide will provide some opportunities which the other cities may not. Just need to keep your eyes and mind open.

The next decision for us has been to move into the real estate industry. Looking from only a financial perspective, at one time I did not believe in the idea of buying my own house however, that has changed for now. If you add in the emotional and other aspects of living in your own house, it surely trumps for me now.

The Australian real estate market has been doing very well for the past 7+ years. Adelaide is continuing to do well (20% growth in the last year) and with the big mining boom expected in the near future; it will continue to do well.

In all consideration, we have decided to build our own home. With the limitations in our budget and meeting our needs we are going ahead for now. One consideration is the design and building of a green home.

Since this is a big decision for me and the biggest financial outlay till date; I will be planning this real well. Considering the possible green aspects of the house, I will be blogging about this under the Green Home category of this blog. I hope this will be of interest to some of the readers.

Suggestions, advise, experiences and anything else will be appreciated. Read on!

Solar PV industry and govt. subsidy

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The Age reports on solar PV cancellations from households

Solar businesses, in a national phone hook-up on Friday, reported that at least five people had already lost their jobs and more were expected to go this week as cancelled orders surge.

From midnight on Tuesday, a family that earns more than $100,000 a year could no longer claim the rebate of up to $8000 on a solar photovoltaic system for their home.

The Clean Energy Council told The Sunday Age that one company had 98% of orders abandoned. The biggest impact has been in cities, where 50-70% of orders were being ditched, leaving companies with millions of dollars of lost business.

As previously noted, this clearly shows the effect of public policy and subsidy for the solar industry. As feed-in-tarriff’s, a mechanism which has produced good results in Europe, is not being aggressively pursued in Australia, this rebate is the only meaningful subsidy for the solar PV industry.

However, all is not lost. The Rudd labour government has announced a Green Loan program.

Around 200,000 households on up to $250,000 a year will be able to take advantage of the program which will offer loans of up to $10,000, with interest capped at the inflation rate, for green products aimed at making established homes more energy and water efficient.

The program would come into effect in January 2009 and run until 2012-13 but Mr Rudd flagged Labor would consider expanding it if it proved successful
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“(This is so) working families can install solar panels or rainwater tanks or roof insulation or solar hot water systems or high efficiency gas hot water heaters … or awnings or grey water recycling systems and energy efficient lighting,” he said.

We need to see how this industry will perform in the coming months and whether there will be a change in policy.

Energy and the Auastralian Federal Budget – Where did it go wrong?

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John Connor, CEO of the Climate Institute, writes in Crikey of the negative consequences of the budget for the energy and environmental industry.

The most important in our view was the failure to allocate any funding to the Renewable Energy Fund in the coming financial year, particularly as a number of drilling projects important to the development of the geothermal clean energy option were relying on funding this year. This has sent share prices tumbling and the Government scrambling to assure this industry they’ll be supported through the other “green energy fund”, the Energy Innovation Fund, or assurances for the following financial year. The only explanation for this blooper is that the efforts to hoover up as big a surplus as possible led to this hoovering of credibility.

That the main public heat has surrounded the means testing for the solar rebate demonstrates both the public backing for solar initiatives, and the precarious nature of rebates (and subsidies) as policy solutions. The visiting German Environment Minister observed that if you want to encourage solar PV rollout, a better policy instrument for unlocking longer term opportunities is guaranteed feed-in tariffs for electricity generation post installation. It’s clear that the rebate system has fed a boom. It is also clear that restricting the rebate to $100,000 pa households is causing something of a bust, especially for those businesses relying solely on the rebate program for their income. There are separate and relatively substantial pots of money for solar cities and solar schools initiatives that may allow a softer landing for the existing industry but the real spotlight should be on developing a consistent national feed-in tariff strategy for solar and other low emission sources that will not be captured by the Renewable Energy Target to make sure Australia has a diverse portfolio of clean energy options in 2020.

Dr. Nelson’s petrol policy for Australia

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Mungo MacCallum writes on Crikey about Dr. Nelson, the leader of the Liberal party in Australia on his budget reply speech suggestion of a decrease in excise duty of 5c per litre of petrol.

There are some policy proposals which are so bad that they are unforgivable, and this is one of them. At the most superficial level it is meaningless populism: a five cent cut now would save the average family less than $5 a week and would be quickly absorbed by future price movements anyway. But at a deeper level it contradicts the entire thrust of sensible fiscal and energy policy.

Petrol in Australia is still relatively cheap compared to most of the world, especially Europe, and we still use far too much of it. Because it is a non-renewable and increasingly scarce resource, and a major contributor to climate change as well, we should be trying to wean people off it. By announcing that if punters whinge loudly enough the government can and will bring the price down, Nelson is sending all the wrong signals.

And it isn’t even an original idea: John Howard did it when he was in trouble at the beginning of 2001, but wisely resisted pleas for an encore for the next seven years. Nelson’s move, against all advice, is appalling policy and is now turning into bad politics as well. And by making it, he may well have added himself to the budget’s short but vocal list of losers

Even though we can understand the need for Dr. Nelson to propose a election style stunt in his budget reply speech, this is outright scandalous regarding his economic credentials and provides a glimpse of the climate change policy that can be expected if the Liberal party is elected again.