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Australians could soon be paid $10,000 to replace their gas cooktop with an electric stove – but only if they install solar panels or renewable energy batteries.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese‘s Labor government and the Greens have struck a deal to cap the wholesale price of gas at $12 a gigajoule in a bid to reduce soaring household power bills.
The 12-month cap for east coast gas producers is due to come into effect in December, with a special sitting of Parliament being held this week to cap gas and coal prices.Â
Treasury estimates it will reduce average household power bills by $230 a year, but as part of a deal with Greens, the government has also agreed to a ‘meaningful and substantial’ package in the May budget to help poorer Australians and renters switch to renewable energy.Â
The Greens campaigned at the last election to give $10,000 grants to small businesses, and $5,000 to Australian households if they installed rooftop solar panels.
Greens leader Adam Bandt said he wants low and middle-income earners to get thousands of dollars upfront if they get rid of their ‘dirty gas’ stove and install rooftop solar panels or battery storage energy.
‘What we’re wanting to do is help households, especially low and middle-income households, make the switch from what can often be expensive as well as polluting gas on to cheap, plain renewables,’ he told ABC Radio National.
Greens leader Adam Bandt, who is working on a broader energy package with the government ahead of next year’s budget, has indicated he wants low and middle-income earners to get thousands of dollars upfront if they get rid of their ‘dirty gas’ stove and install rooftop solar panels or battery storage energy
‘Details will be announced in the budget but the essence of it is to help households and businesses generate and keep renewable energy and use that to bring their power bills down by hundreds if not by thousands of dollars.’
The Climate Council estimates Australians could save $1,900 a year by replacing their gas stoves for more electric appliances.
But the most basic rooftop solar panels cost thousands of dollars and Tesla solar batteries cost up to $20,000, making them way too expensive for more middle-income Australians.Â
The Greens want the government to spend $17.1billion to get more renewable energy into Australian homes.Â
‘The problem is, for a lot of low-income earners, a lot of businesses, they just don’t have that upfront cash, especially at the moment,’ Mr Bandt said.
‘So what we secured from the government is a commitment to work out how government can step in, meet that upfront cost so that people can make that switch and start enjoying the savings straight away so that it’s not just something that only people on high incomes can afford.’
State governments offer rebates for those who switch to renewable energy with Victoria offering up to $1,850, or about half the existing value of an average 4 kilowatt solar photovoltaic system.
The Greens want a new set of federal government subsidies that are specifically designed to make Australians disconnect their gas in favour of renewable energy.
The Climate Council estimates Australians could save $1,900 a year by replacing their gas stoves for more electric appliances (pictured is a stock image)
Energy Minister Chris Bowen confirmed Labor had agreed to a ‘meaningful and substantial package’ with the Greens to accelerate residential electrification.
‘We had a good conversation with Adam Bandt and the Greens and… we have agreed that we will develop, in the lead up to the new budget, a package to assist Australian households and businesses deal with the move to electrification and support them on those on that journey,’ he said.
Mr Bandt argued giving specific taxpayer-funded subsidies to poorer Australians to install renewable energy would be the best way to ‘start reining in’ power bills, with Treasury predicting a 56 per cent surge in electricity bills in 2022 and 2023.
‘We think power bills are going through the roof and it’s driven by the greed of the coal and gas corporations,’ he said.Â
‘We’ve got to do something.’Â
The Greens leader said also businesses should be paid to switch off the gas and instead install renewable energy.
‘A lot of businesses use gas at the moment because they thought it was always going to be cheap and it turns out that it is not,’ Mr Bandt said.
‘They use gas for things that could actually be done by electricity.
The most basic rooftop solar panels cost thousands of dollars and Tesla solar batteries cost up to $20,000, making them way too expensive for more middle-income Australians (pictured are solar panels on a Sydney house)
‘Now if the government steps in and helps those businesses with some money upfront to say, ‘We’ll help you switch over from an expensive gas cooker to an electric one where you’ve got a battery and you’re storing your energy with solar, you can start bringing down the costs of those businesses by hundreds of dollars, if not thousands.’
Labor didn’t agree to the Greens’ push for a two-year electricity bill freeze by imposing a windfall profit tax on coal and gas companies – something which a previous Labor government tried but failed to do with mining companies in 2010.
‘We’re going to keep pushing for that as the government designs its support measures that they say are going to start rolling out next year,’ Mr Bandt said.Â
‘With electricity bills going up so much, we should be freezing electricity bills for the next two years and we could fund it by putting a windfall tax on these big coal and gas giants.
‘We can freeze power bills while we’re in the middle of this crisis.’Â
The gas price cap is being reviewed in mid-2023 with the $12 a gigajoule price cap still above the average 2021 wholesale price of $9.20 a gigajoule.
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