Average household savings per year on energy and vehicle costs by 2030.
Total household savings per year across your electorate by 2030.
Direct and indirect jobs created from community savings and installation work.
Reduction in household energy emissions.
The benefits are amplified when entire suburbs, communities and regions electrify their homes. Changing the way energy is created and used will reinvigorate local communities and economies by keeping savings in local areas and injecting millions of dollars into well-paid, skilled jobs.
Generating more electricity at the community level
The communities of tomorrow will stay connected to the grid, while generating far more energy locally using the cheapest home energy in the world - Australian rooftop solar. Staying on the grid will continue to balance community electricity needs, while producing most of our energy from community rooftop solar. This will mean the lowest possible energy prices for households.
Keeping more money in the community
The bulk of current household fossil fuel spending is on petrol and diesel products imported from overseas. This is money that is not being reinvested into Australian jobs, businesses or community infrastructure. Electrification of our homes will keep this money in the local community, both in it’s new clean infrastructure, and in the economic savings made by homes.
Investing in local jobs
The electrification of homes will save money for communities, and also require the upgrading and renovation of thousands of homes, generating local jobs. This will generate local jobs for the installation of solar panels, batteries, electric vehicle chargers, heating systems, and cooktops. These are skilled, local jobs that can’t be taken offshore.
Zero-emissions communities
Australia has the climate, technology and solar track record to create the world’s first zero-emissions communities. Modelling demonstrates this is achievable and will see broad benefits for communities. The Rewiring Australia study Castles and Cars modelled the energy and economic impacts of home electrification for the average individual household. We have built on this model to quantify the economic and jobs benefits that electrification will have for communities and regions.
Four policies will make Australia a world leader in the electrification revolution:
1.
2022 - 2025: Pilots to showcase the technology
Australia is the place to make electrification happen first. We have the institutions, technology and successful love affair with rooftop solar. But with any change, we need to show people how it works and iron out any issues before we move towards the mass electrification of the country. Four world-first pilots that electrify entire communities will provide an opportunity to demonstrate how the technologies fit together to deliver cheaper energy and transport for households while not creating any issues for grid security. The pilots would work with 300-500 households in two urban and two rural communities. Households in these communities would receive support in the process of electrification and subsidies for new electric appliances, solar, battery, energy control system and lease of an electric vehicle. The pilots would cost up to $100 million and could be delivered by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency within its existing budget.
2.
2022 - 2030: Subsidies to bring down costs and scale up the industry
The cost of electrifying homes is dropping and will continue to as the renewable industries grow. But the scale of mass electrification means we need to accelerate cost reductions and scale up Australia’s electrification industry. The Federal Government must invest in early commercial deployment of the products and technology needed to electrify homes. Over the 2020s $12 billion of federal government funding is all that is needed to turbocharge all 11 million Australian households to make the switch to solar energy and storage for homes and vehicles, regardless of their postcode or financial constraints. By around 2026 electrification will be commercially driven and not require subsidies for most homes. While $12 billion sounds like a lot, it equates to less than 10% of Covid stimulus spending and far less than current fossil fuel subsidies. Almost half of this money could be captured by uncommitted funds from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
3.
Training to build the workforce
An electrified economy will be jobs-rich with new jobs generated to upgrade and maintain electrified homes. A massive training and accreditation effort will be needed to upskill and build the workforce to meet demand. Funding for this work will be supported by the subsidies outlined above. This effort will also need to draw together unions, employers and the trade education sector.
4.
Deregulation to-cut the brown tape holding back solar, storage and EVs
There are hundreds of out-dated laws and regulations holding back electrification. These range from the thousands of pages of electricity law to planning schemes that do not make it easy for communities and companies to install private and shared EV chargers. Over the next two years, Australia must cut through the brown tape so, the market can flourish and households can profit.
Modelling the household and community level savings
The household electrification model (including energy use, emissions, pricing) is based on the Rewiring Australia Castles and Cars Technical Study, October 2021 (https://www.rewiringaustralia.org/castles-and-cars). This model has been further refined with community level household numbers, vehicles per household in each community, and postcode level solar data. Household numbers for communities are derived from the ABS 2016 Census of Population and Housing, using occupied private dwellings. To account for the increase in housing between 2016 and 2022, ABS Household and Family Projections, Australia 2016-204 are used. The projected percentage increase in homes from 2016 to 2022 Series II by state or closest city is multiplied by the 2016 Census households figure. Vehicles per household are derived from the 2016 Census. Rooftop solar capacity factors are derived from postcode level solar data between April 2021 and March 2022, provided by Solar Analytics. Where data is not available for a 4 digit postcode, the average for the larger 2 digit postcode is used. Electorate level capacity factors are derived from a weighted average of the postcode level solar data in the electorate, weighted by the households in each postcode. The number of households to use for the weighted average is weighted by the proportion of the postal area within the electorate as prescribed in the Parliament of Australia’s Postal Area to Commonwealth Electoral Divisions guide using that latest available update (updated 28 April 2021) at the time of modelling.
Modelling community spending and job creation
The savings made by households in the community are likely to result in new household spending. Employment to GDP ratios were used to model job creations. Assuming labour is available and that there is no net poaching from other employers, for every million in new spending 5.9 jobs will be created. Calculations based on ABS 2021 Australian National Accounts: Input-Output Tables, 2018-19 and ABS 2022 Labour Force, Australia, March 2022. The annualised December quarter GDP figure was used as well as the employment figure for November 2021, the midpoint of the quarter. Spending patterns were used to model indirect job creation. For every million dollars of sales in Australia, 39 per cent is final usage and 61 per cent is intermediate goods. This suggests that for every million dollars of direct value added there is another $1.56 million of indirect value added. Assuming similar labour intensities then every direct job created is associated with 1.56 indirect jobs giving a total of 2.56 jobs. Calculations based on ABS (2021) Australian National Accounts: Input-Output Tables, 2018-19.Consumption spending was used to model how much of the household savings of electrification will remain in the region. The model makes a conservative estimate that 60 percent of spending remains in a local area. This calculation is based on ABS Australian National Accounts: National income, expenditure and product, December 2021.In the four quarters of 2021, 55 per cent of Australian consumption spending is on services that are produced locally including rent and other dwelling services, health, operation of vehicles, transport services, recreation and culture, education services, hotels, cafes and restaurants. A further 8 per cent involves sales of goods likely to have very high retail and wholesale markups plus some local content. These include food, clothing and footwear, furnishings etc and 4 per cent local content would be reasonable. The remainder includes purchases of motor vehicles, communications, insurance and other financial services which are unlikely to have much local content. Hence all up we can assume a conservative 60 per cent of new spending remains in the local area. (calculations based on ABS (2022) Australian National Accounts: National income, expenditure and product, December 2021, 2 March.) In summary, based on national averages, for every $million in spending 5.9 total jobs are created and, of those, 2.3 (39% of 5.9) are direct jobs and 3.6 indirect. 60% of all these jobs might be expected to remain in the local community.Direct installation jobs were modelled using ABS (2021) Australian National Accounts: Input-Output Tables, 2018-19 based on “Residential Construction”. For every $million in spending 1.5 direct jobs are created, and 2.2 jobs in other industries are created. In total, 3.7 jobs per $million for spending on electrification installations.