This is what they take from us
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
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Of course, the power companies have been jacking up service fees for the last decade to keep their bottom line. That would not be too bad if they were actually increasing grid capacity or even properly maintaining the current infrastructure, but noo. Those free power plans come with a further jacked up service fee that makes it uneconomic unless you're charging an EV regularly at those times. Same shit, different day.
This is the hard part about batteries, which I think will lead to an eventual re-nationalisation of the grid. We all still need it to be able to deliver the same quality, but more and more people will be using it less of the time.
So cost of running doesn't change, but charged revenue will decrease (maybe even exponentially) over the next year's.
Not a personal attack at all, but do you see any realistic way to tackle this apart from raising base service fees?
but do you see any realistic way to tackle this apart from raising base service fees?
Hard agree on re-nationalizing a natural monopoly (bloody neoliberal bullshit), which is itself a realistic way. Beyond that investigate microgrids, redundancy (especially EV batteries), making large users pay for their own infrastructure and preferably renewable generation (Aluminium smelters, AI Datacentres, or say no to AI). Battery uptake should be taking pressure off the grid and making it cheaper, but here we are.
I wish home battery costs were lower my batteries cost about $12k usd.
We got a ~42kW system installed for ~$5K USD, thanks to these Australian Gov’t grants.
Once our EV arrives, we’ll get access to a subsidised super off-peak energy rate of ~3.5c/kWh from midnight to 6am.
So Freakin Cool!