Solar, wind and environment energy is abundant around us, so why not use that abundant energy to be comfortable and active?
Abundant energy is cheap
Solar energy falls (free) upon all of us, on our homes and our gardens. Rooftop solar PV can capture that energy directly. for you to use around your home as electricity.
Heat pumps use a little electricity to move (free) energy out of the air around you to where you want it to be – this might be to heat or cool your home spaces, or heat your hot water.
Combined with a battery to let you store your solar energy, you can use at the times that you want. This storage role has been performed chemically by coal, (methane) gas or even hydrogen. But these chemical processes are less efficient than the physical process in a battery – so you lose more energy, which means you lose more money.
So a home with solar and a battery to provide energy, combined with insulated spaces and efficient appliances to optimise the use of that energy, is the cheapest way of keeping ourselves comfortable.
Collectively household energy use, including electricity and (particularly in Melbourne) natural gas (mostly methane) is a large contributor to Australian energy use and CO2 emissions. So your home energy transition will help reduce CO2 emissions too. The energy transition is a matter of demand by energy loads (you and your home) as well as supply by energy generation (solar and wind generation)
It is only one part of the equation to replace all the fossil fuel machines that generate energy as electricity for use. (Unashamedly borrowing from Rewiring Australia and the Big Switch).
We, as people with homes and houses, also need to replace all the fossil fuel machines we have and use with electric machines. That includes things like
- your fossil fuel car
- your fossil fuel space heater in your home
- your fossil fuel cooktop and oven (and yes even that BBQ can be electric)
- your fossil fuel motor mower and all those other tools that burn stuff