Bindi Lee counts every cent.
The 52-year-old has to – she is on a disability pension and lives in public housing.
With energy bills increasing Lee uses little lamps in the kitchen and loungeroom instead of the overhead lights and cooks big batches of food so she doesn’t have to turn the stove on every night.
She does her washing during the off-peak period and turns off every power point in the house when isn’t in use.
“I’m very, very, very strict with how I use my power,” Lee said.
Lee moved into her home in Carlton 10 years ago, and has only fallen behind on a bill once – but it’s harder to stay afloat as energy prices increase.
As those bills soar, Rewiring Australia and the Community Housing Industry Association have joined forces to call for next week’s federal budget to include a $500m electrification fund to install solar panels on social and affordable housing.
If their call is successful, Lee will be one of the thousands of Australians to benefit. If we want to phase out gas, solar panels on the roofs of public houses are the only answer, she said.
“It would be a godsend, it would be an absolute godsend. And to be honest, I can’t understand why that hasn’t already come into play,” she said.
The proposed scheme would include $200m of federal funding and $300m from the states and would mean up to an estimated quarter of the 440,000 social housing dwellings across the country could be moved onto zero emissions power.
“Electrification will soon be saving billions of dollars for wealthy households and we must ensure its financial and health benefits are extended to all Australians,” Wendy Hayhurst, chief executive of Community Housing Industry Association said.
By installing solar panels and swapping out gas-fired stoves and heaters for electric devices, the scheme would move the properties to zero emissions while also saving residents money, Hayhurst said.
“This [scheme] will prove that old and energy-inefficient housing stock can be readily retrofitted for complete decarbonisation,” Hayhurst said.
Last year research from the University of NSW and the Australian Photovoltaic Institute revealed adding solar panels to social housing stock would save households on average $750 a year.
“Those are the average figures, some households will be saving a lot more than that,” report author Mike Roberts said.
While some state governments had rolled out programs that put a small number of panels on public houses but it was largely a “piecemeal” approach, Roberts said.
Public housing was a good choice because the majority of it was low to medium-density he said.
“It’s kind of the easy pickings in terms of apartment building,” Roberts said.
Co-founder and chief scientist of Rewiring Australia, Saul Griffith, said people on lower incomes are more exposed to the increasing costs of power because a greater portion of their income goes to energy.
“However, the sun is not putting its prices up,” Griffith said.
“When we harness it for our cars, heating, water and cooking, we permanently improve the cost of living for people on low and modest incomes.”
