North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

And what will the effects be? Will people leave town? Or just suck it up?

http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2012/1 ... tnews.html

My Darwin two-bedroom unit's power bill went as high as $1300 a quarter, I guess that would be around $1600 now. Yeezuz!

I wonder what it would cost to run a genset per quarter? You could buy a genset per quarter on that sort of cash.

Hugely damaging if you ask me, all these costs leave less spare cash for NT people to buy other things, so Darwin businesses suffer a double hit - higher costs, and less income.

I had $850 for 62 days... That's $5100 a year... Plus 30% to that its a joke..

PAW aren't going to make any more money, there will be more people leaving darwin, more people over and due and more people going to solar..

PAW = Big frig up!!!!

There will be plenty of people who move out of town but, If ya don’t use it, ya won’t pay for it

My bro in law also has a huge power bill and couldn’t understand why!!!
I suggested he doesn’t need every light in every room on during the day (or even at night for that matter), nor does he need to run every tv (6 in all) at the same time, nor does he need to run the a/c while he is out ‘because its nice to come home to a cool house’.
So he took my advice (not) and installed solar panels etc. etc.
He feels ripped off because he isn’t getting any pay back from being connected to the grid.

Matt, have a look around on the walls of your place and you will see a small plastic device - its called a switch. use it

Got a brand new 32KVA genset on the block here all wired in ready to rock and roll for extended power outages
Might have to fire it up and run it for a week to see the difference in running cost opposed to Power and water costs

It would be interesting to see the cost difference of running a genny. My little one is set up in my motorhome and powers the whole rig. I can run a/c, dishwasher etc at once.

For most, I can understand "annoying" but if this is going to send you broke maybe shouldn’t live here in the first place. There are to many people living outside there means these days, and lets face it that’s why we had the GFC, people want more than what they can afford.

The only ones I feel sorry for the older retired folk who have been living in the NT forever. They probably brought there home for 12k or less back in the day. My grandmother went to school at Nightcliff before the bombing of Darwin can’t see her being able to afford this price hike. I guess this restores the old term "Granny flat" for some of us!!! “G’day Nan make yourself at home”

The only reason our power is so high compared to other states is because suppling power to remote areas is not cheap, you could live next to PowerStation its going to cost you the same if you live in bum frig no-where. The truth is we were probably paying the high price anyway; the NT government were robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's only now you getting it in the one bill. I guess the money that was being used to subsidise your power and water are now being used for something else.

I heard something saying that the NT 'was' one of the lowest prices for power in Oz. Just cant find it now
I cant see how when there is no competition here

Matt, have a look around on the walls of your place and you will see a small plastic device - its called a switch. use it

I had the hot water on the lowest setting (a dangerous thing to do, I found out later), I had to run a small aircon in the office 24/7 because of all the PC s and office gear, otherwise we didn't have aircons on that much, and only one TV. I never could understand the high bill, and I tried turning off each appliance and watching the meter etc, even got the Cool Mob or whatever they are called in for an audit. I turn lights off constantly, now I have kids I am thinking of putting timers on everything

Solar sales will be huge in Darwin now

Shame you can't grow power plants

nomad wrote:I heard something saying that the NT 'was' one of the lowest prices for power in Oz. Just cant find it now
I cant see how when there is no competition here

PWC is government run that’s why, they are there to supply power not make profit. Because of the monopoly it’s the NT government’s job regulate the cost passed onto the consumer. That’s why when the CEO got stood down I found it weird because Hendo would of had the last say!! The last government were to chicken to pass on the cost, I guess it would have been political suicide.

I think its hard to change peoples attitudes to anything.
Im not sure that going solar will help unless people change their power usage.

I couldnt get over the amount of water wastage here when i first arrived . The whole country was in drought but we just wasted it. Now im like everyone and waste it all the time
You never miss your water til your well runs dry.

I was in Vic a few weeks ago and they have massive signs everywhere asking people to reduce waste. ie dont let the tap run while cleaning teeth, short showers etc

When i was a kid, we had the power turned off because we couldnt pay the bill. You soon learn to turn things off when you are freezing in the middle of winter when its -10 outside
Ive always been the same since then.
My mates get the s...ts when i turn lights off as i leave a room. They say "why did you turn that off?" I say, its daytime, why did you have it on.


Ive changed all my lights over to leds, my motorhome has a meter telling me how much power im using. Makes a big differencefrom Halogen to leds.


Years ago, i installed solar water heater and it was amazing. Cost me around $20/year for hot water. I rarely had the booster on. My brother stayed over and said that the hot water was cold. I asked him if he had to turn the cold water on and he said ;just a little bit"
I said well its too hot then.

Yeah Ben
Most (if not all) of the power stations in other states were govt owned and operated.
they were privatised and the prices went up. then they had the national grid (which isnt national) and now the prices have levelled off because of competition.
No competition here.

Queensland recently admitted that power revenue is being used as a tax to pay for many other things. When asked if they would be reducing power costs, the premier said no, "we are using it to keep schools open, hospitals running" etc.

If you ask me I'll tell you I don't think any of the grubberments or their subsiduaries couldn't run a p..s up in a brewery
It has always been robbing Peter to pay Paul
Anything run by grubberments should be run at a costing of what ever is needed to keep it running and allow for more infrastructue as needed or better still before needed as it costs less to build now than in 10 to 15 years time
They have all the models in place these days for expected growth and what have you
I would not complain about paying levy on anything as long as the money gained by each utility got spent on that utility and not funneled of to pay for something else or wasted on needless jobs created within those utilities

nomad wrote:Yeah Ben
Most (if not all) of the power stations in other states were govt owned and operated.
they were privatised and the prices went up. then they had the national grid (which isnt national) and now the prices have levelled off because of competition.
No competition here.

Think the biggest difference between the NT and other states is how spread out we are. The cost involved with providing services to remote areas plus the up keep would cost a fortune. It's unfortunate but we all have to wear the price because Old terry Mills has made it quiet clear he don't want to help out.