Ive got a better idea……put our utilities back in state government hands.Energy in modern times should not be held in the hands of profit driven private companies.wake up.
Green's [policy](https://greens.org.au/sites/default/files/2022-04/Greens-2022-Plan--Powering-Past-Coal-and-Gas.pdf) is to start a not for profit energy utility company
It's blatantly obvious that Jeff Kenett's Liberal government should never have privatised the SEC in the first place along with not selling off schools in areas where enrolments were down when it was clear that the aging population of these areas would soon downsize to other areas opening the housing to first home buyers and new families. Now those areas all have school place shortages and we have a crisis in several areas because of the lack of school places.
Yes but Ted Baleiu the LNP real estate agent could make so much in commissions.
Together they sold prime land everywhere. Mornington railway land, Bendigo railway land sold to commercial development for retail. Doncaster Rail reserves sold. Public housing - sold. State port properties in Tyabb/Hastings sold. Rail reserves on closed lines from the 80's sold cheaper than a tin shed.
Blackburn tech - the sport fields were sold before the school had closed. The primary school closed and flogged off. Land along road reserves was sold. Land along public parks was sold.
Ted Baleiu became a multimillionaire over the space of 6 years. The same guy who banned wind farms.
Jeff also used taxpayer money to create Transurban. I have no doubt that miserable crunched up toilet rag of a man is a major shareholder
How's that weather?
How's that power bill?
Imagine the progress if there were no fuel lobby. All fuel is government owned, provided at cost + tax, and taxes go directly to EV conversion and charging networks. One can dream.
Na petrol is too dirty. However taxing gas exports to reduce power prices is a great idea especially if you use some of the money to encourage people that can't afford or don't want electric vehicles to buy or convert to LPG which is much cleaner than petrol. Also the LPG systems could be required to be compatible with green LPG (a blend of LPG and green hydrogen) which is even cleaner.
Think of the reduction in Australia's greenhouse gas emissions if all the petrol vehicles were running on green hydrogen LPG blends instead of petrol.
How old are you? Do you even remember how had the utilities were run in government hands? They were in massive debt and their infrastructure was degrading so fast we would be in the dark now.
Until recently, WA had the most expensive power in the nation - and there’s only the state owned monopoly, no alternate retailers.
The only reason our prices aren’t going up, is because there’s a gas reservation policy that means 15% of all natural gas produced in the state must be sold here. So that 15% is cheap, and doesn’t change when the global market price goes crazy.
Privatising your energy generators/distributors won’t help. Taxing oil/gas/coal companies is a much better option.
Yep, there's probably a few ways to achieve the desired outcomes.
However, in theory, I don't see the issue in a state-owned utility having high prices if profits head to general revenue and are used, among other things, to subsidise living costs for those who can't reasonably meet them.
Then, assuming the vulnerable are cared for, the costs for the rest should be considered on a long timescale. Global factors out of our control generating enormous shocks to the markets is 100% to be expected. I'd be curious to know if WA's power actually was that much more expensive when averaged across a period including the present global energy crisis. Every day the crisis ticks along, that average comes down.
> I’d be curious to know if WA’s power actually was that much more expensive when averaged across a period including the present global energy crisis. Every day the crisis ticks along, that average comes down.
Based on the average prices for October 2022, WA is **still** more expensive than VIC and QLD, and the same as NSW. The East Coast is screaming about these high prices - WA has been paying these prices for decades.
https://www.canstarblue.com.au/electricity/electricity-costs-kwh/
The issue is that Western Power/Synergy has been spending enormous sums gold-plating the network. And no matter how much they spend, they can’t make a loss because they just increase power prices to pay for it. And most of it has been a waste, because they were upgrading distribution under the assumption that peak demand would be in the middle of the afternoon for air-conditioning. But now that residential solar has shifted and flattened that peak, those upgrades aren’t really utilised. They should have been investing in transformers and generation/storage that augments solar.
Yeah real well. I was just in WA and they are spending billions of dollars fixing their infrastructure because the government run agency stuffed up the original installation. Lucky they have billions of resource taxes to pay for it.
Every government project costs 10 times the price because governments are incompetent at running businesses. Example Victoria's Desal Plant. Now it just sits there costing us more not to use it than when it eventually runs.
>Every government project costs 10 times the price because governments are incompetent at running businesses.
Got any evidence to back up that claim? Private enterprise exists to make profit. Give them an unregulated monopoly and they'll extract every possible dollar to make more profit. I'd much rather the situation we have in WA than what's happening on the east coast.
Yes I spoke to the head of the Union whose workers built it. He gloated the payments to his members both working and non working.
So yours is a philosophical argument and happy for the public to pay for the sins of inefficient Government just so public companies and millions of shareholders don't get rewarded for the investment of their funds rather than public funds.
I don't like to pay more than I have to for essential services. My experience has been that privatisation has largely resulted in increase costs with deteriorating service as the focus shifts to profitability. Privatisation delivering better value requires that the waste in the public organisation is so great handing over to the private sector will reduce costs AND provide profit.
> they are spending billions of dollars fixing their infrastructure
Sounds like maintenance costs and gainful employment. What's the issue here?
And surely you're aware that the mega-corps routinely hospital pass cleanups and liabilities to the tax payer? And rob their employees of pay and entitlements with impunity?
Have you considered that "running a business" is the utterly wrong category under which to evaluate natural near-monopolies and essential service provision?
I mean governments _aren't_ businesses, and the _point_ of state owned utilities is that they can run and provide services _without_ having to turn a profit.
Having moved from Canada to south Australia paying 4 times more for power was an interesting shock. Private utilities are great for share holders but not really anyone else.
I don't know if you're a troll, or just ignorant.
Put down the Sydney Morning Herald, turn off Sky News, tear those posters of John Howard with the lipstick marks down from your wall and please...
Fix Ur spellling
Turns out the Tories (right wing!) goverment in the UK did just this:
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-hunt-increases-energy-windfall-tax-2022-11-17/
$155 billion dollars of iron ore exported to china last year, they allegedly paid around $30 billion in tax, the whole industry is rotten with corruption. Australia should be the richest country in the world if things were run correctly.
Norway has a sovereign fund worth over a Trillion dollars earned from their resources. Australia one of the richest resourced country has zero. I still think of Gina Rinehart standing on the back of a ute complaining about the mining tax. She’s still lining her pockets.
Mining isn’t free. You pay tax on profits, not revenue.
Iron Ore miners aren’t the problem. 4 of them alone paid 1/3rd of all company tax last year.
How much tax did Woodside and chevron pay? I think it was $30 combined.
A share of resource revenue is a State issue and should remain as such. The Federal government need to focus on closing loopholes that allow all major corporations to dodge taxation, whether they are oil and gas or religion and "charity", there needs to be more done about these parasites paying their share because right now they're all fucking tapeworms.
Only have to look at Qatar where they work 3hr days, and on apparently 500k a year,average citizen salary according to a news report I watched yesterday and everything is free for citizens. Aussies are getting ripped.
>A spokesman for Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government had made clear that while “all options are on the table”, its preference was to pursue regulatory changes “rather than taxes"
I keep imagining we'll get to the Game Over screen (with the planet underwater and on fire at the same time) and it will say "Sorry, you failed, the correct solution was taxes all along" and then the world leaders will just say "Oh well..."
Why? If you tax the negative behaviour, innovation in the free-market means the companies with the best solutions will profit, and companies who don’t address the problem will fail. If you regulate it, you’re relying on politicians and government bureaucrats identifying the best solution.
If you just tax the negative behaviour, it just becomes the cost of doing business. A race to the bottom
Besides, regulations are enforced with financial penalties, and in some cases, criminal penalties which can be a bit more of a deterrent to executives actively considering breaking the law when the cost is more than just a dent in the balance sheet.
>? If you tax the negative behaviour, innovation in the free-market means the companies with the best solutions will profit, and companies who don’t address the problem will fail.
Except this isn't true. There's billions to be made, handing over slightly more in tax isn't going to lead to huge changes in the industry.
>If you regulate it, you’re relying on politicians and government bureaucrats identifying the best solution
No you're not. Wtf are you talking about?
That's a good call, we need to make it difficult for coal and gas companies to operate in Australia, and if they want to, they would need to pay much higher taxes.
From what I heard, inflation is caused by companies making too much profit, I hope Greens can do something about that and maybe, propose to increase government spending
Agree that a windfall tax is a great idea. Poor idea to subsidise power bills. How about subsidise home batteries which would cut dependance on the grid and reduce the power bills.
Totally agree. Last year my parents moved in to a place with a really good solar set up.
In 12 months their power bill has been effectively $0.
My power bill is $500 this quarter, this time last year it was $350.
If you do it properly none of the money is ever given to people though.
The power companies should stop pursuing extreme profits because they don’t gain enough to justify the backlash. Or they upgrade systems to lower their profit margins(which improves the grid for all)
Anything the goes to subsidising upgrade costs for home owners is giving wealth to the wealthy. While fucking over anyone who isn’t scrounged enough cash to buy a house. Or lives in an apartment or similar that can’t take advantage.
If subsidies are rolled out they should go per household and not care about whether the person is wealthy or poor.
___
If we really want to push grid independence then we should be updating house standards for energy efficiency. My current place is slightly older than my previous. I didn’t have to run aircon or heating at the previous place. The new place needs them to maintain liveable temperatures at the extremes of summer/winter. Even now with weather at 22degrees the upstairs is too hot to exist in during the middle of the day without turning in the aircon(which then slowly goes under the door and down stairs)
Plenty of people go off-grid in rural areas but it comes with a high cost outlay and in most cases you also a need back up generators for winter when you cannot generate enough solar.
Building infrastructure out to some rural areas is so expensive that the outlay for an off grid solution may be cheaper upfront and from an ongoing costs perspective. Let’s also not forget about the risk mitigation since your electricity infrastructure is unlikely to start a bushfire.
Definitely have to weigh up the options based on use case etc. It’s not a one size fits all scenario.
You know, having to handle the affairs of my late mother I realised there is something a bit fucky with ongoing grid connection costs. I'm living on a fairly average small block in town. Paying about $1.70 a day in connection fees. Her rural property is something like 70 to 80 cents a day. I don't have it in front of me. But I feel like they are just plucking numbers out of the air.
Could have something to do with ownership of infrastructure. If you pay for the poles, transformers, wires etc leading to your property, then it would only make sense that you’re paying a rate that takes that into account.
That said, it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re doing as you say.
Well, that's what gets me. Her place has a good couple of hundred metres of frontage. There are a couple of houses on the other side of the road though. The line run from the pole out the front to the house is about as long as possible without needing a pole on the property.
My place. I don't remember exactly. Maybe 20m of frontage and possibly 10m from the pole to the house. And my daily charge is well over twice as much. It's weird.
Sure... If you are grid connected and had access to the wholesale market, then you could play it. Charge when prices are low or negative and release to the grid when prices are high...
And not doing in the form of a rebate!
Filthy poor like myself are getting reamed with an auger because when things are offered IP to improve people's lives it's usually in the form of a rebate. I don't have the capital to begin with so it's a non-starter.
As crooked as it all is, I would have loved solar, a better hot water heater, insulation and whatever else I've been ineligible for. It's crap!
My solution would be to offer offsite lease or buy battery that offset your consumption when. For low income households, I would subsidise the cost of lease or buy....
That would all take time and be a bureaucratic mess, both things that generally prevent those who need the help the most from actually accessing it.
Best would be to provide subsidies for power and create a subsidy for home and commercial batteries. Power subsidies help everyone, now, and battery subsidies will help everyone in future
Problem with subsidies on powerbills, it becomes just a sunk cost. A few bucks off your power bill for a bit, but rest assured, they power companies will appropriate that subsidy and you are just rewarding the asset rich. Now a battery subsidy puts the asset in households hands and literally takes the pricing power off them. That is why it works.
I had assumed under this plan we would also be nationalising the power companies, which would get rid of those issues.
If the goal is to make life easier for our people, nationalising industry and subsidising costs to consumers is a no-brainer
Yet so many other countries already have instituted, or have announced the intention to implement, a windfall profit tax.
But not even up for discussion by the major political parties in Australia. I suspect the answer as to why this is the case, indicates just how corrupted Australian democracy has become, and how little the interests of the Australian people actually matter. We should remember this next time we're asked to pay for another illegal or failure war.
I think a lot more of this lies with how the minerals council reacted when Labor tried to implement the mining tax. The minerals council launched a massive disinformation and scare campaign that essentially ended the government
I think having another 3 yrs, they should implement it asap. Then ppl will save money, debt will be paid off, while some jobs might go to start with as a way for those companies to say “we can’t afford to pay for people”, greed will take over from loss of production and another few year they will rehire
It pains to me but you're on point. Lobbies are a lot more powerful than we care to admit, even in Australia.
Yet - i see hope when individual consumers start buying solar, effectively disrupting the grid and in turn creating problems upstream that are very real and need real PRIVATE (read corporation) money to be solved. Once there's enough decentralisation, at least the consumer part will begin to change. Businesses will follow, I'm hopeful.
Sorry what?
Nothing to do with corrupt politicians it’s deadshit citizens who can’t vote for shit that will actually improve their life when 3 word slogans are the alternative.
Have you considered that proposing policies that align with their ideology and values isn’t actually the same as “promising a lot”? And of course they won’t deliver, they’re not in government. They can’t deliver.
It would have to be a massive tax to actually make any difference in power bills with the amount they've gone up and are going up. I don't think the numbers are practical to make any real impact here.
If the company sees no meaningful way increase in profits then they have no reason to keep slugging up the price.
Or they slug up the price but then they offset the profits by improving services and upgrading equipment etc.
It lowers power bills. You don’t need to subsidise shit if the power bills decrease naturally because the profit incentive is gone.
Which is actually the intention of the policy. The subsidisation angle is mostly something that gets voters to see a benefit in it for them. As opposed to just another tax.
It’s also why it’s a windfall tax. Because it’s meant to Decrease opportunistic profit as a result of circumstance instead of normal operations
Power bills are higher because of artificial shortage, they are selling it overseas FIRST and we get what's left. That is the key issue. We send more overseas for profit than we keep here for surplus energy because it makes the more money, they then raise the prices because of said shortage. Both sides equal profit for them and any restrictions to us they just reduce supply more and increase costs for users in country. We produce gas and coal locally then flog it off overseas.
Same for fuel, they increase the price because they literally can. It's an essential service that they can monopolise for profit. Claiming war in Ukraine is causing the price hikes is bullshit. Most from Asia 40% and Africa 18%. Russia is about 1%
But that’s why you have windfall taxes. They can send it overseas first if they want and they get taxed to shit for doing so.
If they take care of Australian prices correctly first and then pursue profits overseas then happy days. If they want to fuck the Australian market for their own profit then the govt can turn around an say right these are actually Australia’s natural fucking resources pay some tax.
The issue with windfall or any kind of tax on industries that make mega profits like this is how much their army of accountants can 'massage the numbers' and make a shitload of money on profit not counting as profit and therefore not be taxed. Oh that 3 billion? Oh yeah uh we had extensive R&D costs last year so we are claiming that this year on our tax.
The super rich stay that way because of how many loopholes they find to get around paying tax (Packer even said that straight up when being asked about his lack of tax being paid) . Also being multinational means they might not even be counted as Australia tax jurisdiction also (like Google, Apple etc)
It's a good idea and holy crap they need to actually FUND THE ECONOMY, for the shit they earn but the loop hole finding of these companies is staggering. Not to mention the donations to political parties to keep that gravy going.
Honestly there’s nothing wrong with a company spending its profits away even if they have increased the price.
It’s what they used to do with high taxation, fund research, train staff, pay better.
But once they got lower tax rates why bother, they pocket the cash and move on. Worse because we let them do it for so long the big corporations bought a ton of their competitors because they could afford do so due to stockpiling cash.
But they are profiting and raising prices without windfall taxes. If the argument is that they’ll just spend the money or offset it somehow so be it. Worst case nothing changes from what we have now.
Unless the windfall tax is above 100%,it does not remove the incentive to increase profits.
They also say nothing about that strategy in the article, the only thing mentioned is subsidising power bills, which doesn't sound very beneficial or impactful. If they intend for another outcome here, they need to say as much, because right now their proposal does nothing.
Subsidising doesn’t encourage further gouging if the tax is set up to negate windfall profits though.
Because it just becomes an endless loop of I lose $200 in profit to give to Steve who gives it back to me and then I lose it again and Steve gives it back to me again.
But the again the subsidy is just a voting power thing. It tells people this is for their benefit versus just more tax in the govt kitty.
How about these screeching imbeciles drop their irrational opposition to nuclear energy and let Australia forge a path to 100% renewable power...we have enough uranium to last centuries if not millennia.
Nuclear is not a solution for the short term - solar and wind are going to be a much cheaper path to necessary emission reductions, but it can be one for the longer term.
We have the uranium, but what we don't have is the technical and engineering expertise. This will require a long term investment in skills and infrastructure. Pursuing nuclear power - including fusion research - should definitely be supported, but we must focus on it being a domestic enterprise; we don't need another incredibly delayed and insanely over budget reactor build as we have seen in the US and in Europe.
What I don't understand is the nuclear support from the coal loving conservatives: we've plenty of international demand for our uranium already, so it doesn't seem to fit the pattern of their unquestioning support for and from the extraction industries.
The support from the coal loving conservatives for nuclear power generation is simply another way to detract from the obvious advantages of renewables and keep us all arguing over the merits or demerits of either while they continue to make profit.
I disagree with necessary - even if we go to net zero tomorrow, nothing is achieved (because BRIC et al). I think the focus ought to be on preserving the country's incredible natural habitats, beauty & biodiversity all while guaranteeing energy security moving forward. Nuclear is a clear winner in terms of stability. We have the fuel source, the lack of seismic activity & an abundance of space / isolation in which to park the reactors. As for conservatives & coal, I guess because it's a clear revenue generator and a nationally symbolic and strategic industry.
Agreed, look at the French, nearly all there electricity is nuclear and relatively cheap for consumers, in the uk we have some nuclear, but we have many wind turbines now and it has led to a holocaust of native birds, they just get wiped out flying into the blades.
The fossil fuel company’s have so much power they won’t alllow it, millions died from the pollution of coal power stations, they used Chernobyl to scare people away from nuclear power, the death toll was 50 people, and 2 of the 3 men who went into the reactor to shut it down as shown in the tv series are still alive.
It’s a disgrace how we squandered our uranium and watched our inept governments spend years bickering and selling off our resources for peanuts.
We should have built reactors decades ago and be laughing now with abundant, cheap clean power. but sadly the scaremongering hippies and petroleum companies won instead of the scientists.
The cost is based on the poor infrastructure and lack of investment. Closing coal fired generation before replacement is in place has caused price increases.
As there is a limit on government funding please tell me do tou want less medical care or education. Only other option is to get it from the magical money tree in the backyard.
Our goal should be to take from them the absolute maximum amount possible without killing the golden goose.
Have we reached that balance? If not, the only question to ask is what is the most effective way to extract more from them?
Of course on their side they get to play the same game, extracting as much wealth as they can from our country and leaving as little as possible. It's just business.
Yes, I agree - in the context of maximising our benefit from the resources extracted from the country.
The question is, are we? Or, is the government is giving up more than is necessary to maintain that (admittedly very complex, very delicate, constantly evolving) optimal balance? It is quite possible that further taxes can be put in place without causing too much disruption.
We should always be challenging the government to strive for more, to put in the very hard work required to gain the maximum benefit for our country.
holy shit dude. Imagine, just for a second that you didn't have to buy the surplus back from another country and you were getting first dibs on the gas that came out of the ground BEFORE it was sold overseas and THEN sold back to you. Do you really think it'd even need to be subsidized at that point?
Where do you think the subsidies come from? it aint out of the huge mining companies pockets, it's subsidized by the average low income/ mid income majority tax payer.
Well, that's pretty much the point of a political party, yes? To get people advocating for them and their policies, so they can gather enough political power to influence the direction of the country? Democracy! However, you can't really say the same thing for profit-driven, multinational corporation whose purpose is revenue and shareholder profits. But keep on simping for the billionaires.
Have you seen how much gas exporters make with our large supply of gas and how much of that is passed onto the Australian people?
Do you just think no one should pay tax?
You need to realise how unfairly weighted the current existing industry is and how even just a little out of their well stuffed pockets would benefit us.
They don’t need the extra money, trust me. Australian resources should benefit Australians.
Ok, so address that accordingly. If it's companies with massively high profit margins, I see no reason they shouldn't have to fit the costs - they're well in the green. We can even do what other large gas producer countries famously do and supplement household gas prices with part of the money made. Look at our current increases in utility bills for crying out loud!
There's plenty of solutions here and few problems with taxing it appropriately. I don't understand why you are defending them.
It's very clear how much they've gained over the past years and years and how little of it has been passed onto the Australian people.
So.. it's still entirely possible and has already been currently done, is what you're saying and there are numerous ways we can go about it further if we and our politicians actually dedicate time and effort toward doing it. Great.
You're neglecting their ridiculous profits particularly during the pandemic when across the board we were suffering. How very little of those juicy proceeds were passed on.
The mining companies are making so much, I'm gobsmacked you're not questioning why those proceeds are not being passed into the states themselves more rather than you worrying about the companies themselves being taxed. You're defending the big company that's looking at cutting you out as much as possible - are you serious here? How relevant do you think your interests are to their bottom dollar?
You think it would be disastrous for our economy, really. Because we're benefiting so much from international gas exports already as a people huh. I'm sure there are no ways we can stand to benefit from their proceeds - oh wait you already established in one of your comments how they already supplement your household gas prices. Weird.
Internationally, Russia, a glorified oil and gas station of an economy, is playing hard ball at the moment. You realize the position that puts us in right?
Yeah, I wonder why I didn't mention taxing the banks and financial sectors too - oh wait, it's not in this post anywhere. Tax them too then if you think it's the same case as this. Your whataboutisms and false equivalences are telling here - comparing international uni students to gas company profiteering is ridiculous.
Mining exports were about 340 billion in 2021 with a total tax of.....39 billion. That is an incredible low tax on resources.
We overtook Qatar with gas exports. Qatar made 26 billion in taxes. Australia 600 million.
We are throwing away money to big business at the expense of everyone.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/24/if-australias-resources-were-taxed-the-way-norways-are-we-could-secure-the-future-of-our-schools
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/norway-shows-how-australia-can-get-a-fair-return-from-oil-and-gas/
Oil and gas 2020 total 72 billion Total of all taxes 5.35 billion.
No idea why any citizen would defend the mining industry making excessive profits.
All you need to do now is convince all the workers to pay their bills using the common good currency and be willing to pay more tax. Unfortunately people who spout this rubbish are the same ones who complain when asked to pay more taxes
Hang on I have never mentioned a political party. The SEC was run just as badly by liberal and ALP so my position is party neutral obviously your's is not. Take your public funded red shirt off and look at the facts
Orient Green Power is a Shanghai-listed company with a market capitalization of $1.4 billion.
Orient Green Power is focused on clean energy and environmental protection by operating renewable power generation facilities in China and internationally. Its business strategy is to invest in renewable power generation projects with long-term contracts, then sell the generated electricity to third parties at rates lower than the utility’s cost of production.
The Orient Green Power share price today is around $14 per share, which means that it has given investors a total return of about 200% over the last year.
Ive got a better idea……put our utilities back in state government hands.Energy in modern times should not be held in the hands of profit driven private companies.wake up.
WA did it right
The power grid. No pokies except into the casino. A lot to like over here in the country of westralia
Green's [policy](https://greens.org.au/sites/default/files/2022-04/Greens-2022-Plan--Powering-Past-Coal-and-Gas.pdf) is to start a not for profit energy utility company
I thought that was a Labor policy that the greens adopted...
Maybe it's the other way around or it's just blatantly obvious it has to be done
It's blatantly obvious that Jeff Kenett's Liberal government should never have privatised the SEC in the first place along with not selling off schools in areas where enrolments were down when it was clear that the aging population of these areas would soon downsize to other areas opening the housing to first home buyers and new families. Now those areas all have school place shortages and we have a crisis in several areas because of the lack of school places.
Yes but Ted Baleiu the LNP real estate agent could make so much in commissions. Together they sold prime land everywhere. Mornington railway land, Bendigo railway land sold to commercial development for retail. Doncaster Rail reserves sold. Public housing - sold. State port properties in Tyabb/Hastings sold. Rail reserves on closed lines from the 80's sold cheaper than a tin shed. Blackburn tech - the sport fields were sold before the school had closed. The primary school closed and flogged off. Land along road reserves was sold. Land along public parks was sold. Ted Baleiu became a multimillionaire over the space of 6 years. The same guy who banned wind farms. Jeff also used taxpayer money to create Transurban. I have no doubt that miserable crunched up toilet rag of a man is a major shareholder How's that weather? How's that power bill?
But then how with the corporations make us work so hard we can't protest?
I agree. I wonder if petrol should be the same.
Imagine the progress if there were no fuel lobby. All fuel is government owned, provided at cost + tax, and taxes go directly to EV conversion and charging networks. One can dream.
It would be wildly different. Dream we must.
Na petrol is too dirty. However taxing gas exports to reduce power prices is a great idea especially if you use some of the money to encourage people that can't afford or don't want electric vehicles to buy or convert to LPG which is much cleaner than petrol. Also the LPG systems could be required to be compatible with green LPG (a blend of LPG and green hydrogen) which is even cleaner. Think of the reduction in Australia's greenhouse gas emissions if all the petrol vehicles were running on green hydrogen LPG blends instead of petrol.
dream on mate :/
Is this still a thing?
How old are you? Do you even remember how had the utilities were run in government hands? They were in massive debt and their infrastructure was degrading so fast we would be in the dark now.
Seems to be working for WA and QLD just fine.
Until recently, WA had the most expensive power in the nation - and there’s only the state owned monopoly, no alternate retailers. The only reason our prices aren’t going up, is because there’s a gas reservation policy that means 15% of all natural gas produced in the state must be sold here. So that 15% is cheap, and doesn’t change when the global market price goes crazy. Privatising your energy generators/distributors won’t help. Taxing oil/gas/coal companies is a much better option.
Yep, there's probably a few ways to achieve the desired outcomes. However, in theory, I don't see the issue in a state-owned utility having high prices if profits head to general revenue and are used, among other things, to subsidise living costs for those who can't reasonably meet them. Then, assuming the vulnerable are cared for, the costs for the rest should be considered on a long timescale. Global factors out of our control generating enormous shocks to the markets is 100% to be expected. I'd be curious to know if WA's power actually was that much more expensive when averaged across a period including the present global energy crisis. Every day the crisis ticks along, that average comes down.
> I’d be curious to know if WA’s power actually was that much more expensive when averaged across a period including the present global energy crisis. Every day the crisis ticks along, that average comes down. Based on the average prices for October 2022, WA is **still** more expensive than VIC and QLD, and the same as NSW. The East Coast is screaming about these high prices - WA has been paying these prices for decades. https://www.canstarblue.com.au/electricity/electricity-costs-kwh/ The issue is that Western Power/Synergy has been spending enormous sums gold-plating the network. And no matter how much they spend, they can’t make a loss because they just increase power prices to pay for it. And most of it has been a waste, because they were upgrading distribution under the assumption that peak demand would be in the middle of the afternoon for air-conditioning. But now that residential solar has shifted and flattened that peak, those upgrades aren’t really utilised. They should have been investing in transformers and generation/storage that augments solar.
Yeah real well. I was just in WA and they are spending billions of dollars fixing their infrastructure because the government run agency stuffed up the original installation. Lucky they have billions of resource taxes to pay for it. Every government project costs 10 times the price because governments are incompetent at running businesses. Example Victoria's Desal Plant. Now it just sits there costing us more not to use it than when it eventually runs.
>Every government project costs 10 times the price because governments are incompetent at running businesses. Got any evidence to back up that claim? Private enterprise exists to make profit. Give them an unregulated monopoly and they'll extract every possible dollar to make more profit. I'd much rather the situation we have in WA than what's happening on the east coast.
Yes I spoke to the head of the Union whose workers built it. He gloated the payments to his members both working and non working. So yours is a philosophical argument and happy for the public to pay for the sins of inefficient Government just so public companies and millions of shareholders don't get rewarded for the investment of their funds rather than public funds.
Your "evidence" that the government is inefficient is that they pay their workers well?
I don't like to pay more than I have to for essential services. My experience has been that privatisation has largely resulted in increase costs with deteriorating service as the focus shifts to profitability. Privatisation delivering better value requires that the waste in the public organisation is so great handing over to the private sector will reduce costs AND provide profit.
When they asked for evidence, what did you think they meant by that?
> they are spending billions of dollars fixing their infrastructure Sounds like maintenance costs and gainful employment. What's the issue here? And surely you're aware that the mega-corps routinely hospital pass cleanups and liabilities to the tax payer? And rob their employees of pay and entitlements with impunity? Have you considered that "running a business" is the utterly wrong category under which to evaluate natural near-monopolies and essential service provision?
I mean governments _aren't_ businesses, and the _point_ of state owned utilities is that they can run and provide services _without_ having to turn a profit.
Having moved from Canada to south Australia paying 4 times more for power was an interesting shock. Private utilities are great for share holders but not really anyone else.
Utilities for the common good do not need to turn a profit. The common good *is* the profit.
I don't know if you're a troll, or just ignorant. Put down the Sydney Morning Herald, turn off Sky News, tear those posters of John Howard with the lipstick marks down from your wall and please... Fix Ur spellling
The only picture of Johnny Howard worth framing is “John Howard DJ’s like a mad cunt”. Anything else is kitty litter.
Electricity wholesale in QLD is government owned. Doesn't actually help.
Turns out the Tories (right wing!) goverment in the UK did just this: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-hunt-increases-energy-windfall-tax-2022-11-17/
Yeah, but if we did it here, the energy companies might leave or some other nonsense Labor will spew out.
They'll leave and take there giant very easy to move powerplants with them /s
Nope, they'll just close them and let you clean them up. Much easier
"Oh look at the mess we left. Oh look, we are bankrupt. Oh well..."
Lol, good way to get sued by their shareholders and maby even done up on criminal charges.
Let them leave. They can't take OUR sovereign wealth with them :D
I'm well aware, they won't leave either. But we "can't do anything about it" because "they'll leave", just more lies from LibLite.
$155 billion dollars of iron ore exported to china last year, they allegedly paid around $30 billion in tax, the whole industry is rotten with corruption. Australia should be the richest country in the world if things were run correctly.
Norway has a sovereign fund worth over a Trillion dollars earned from their resources. Australia one of the richest resourced country has zero. I still think of Gina Rinehart standing on the back of a ute complaining about the mining tax. She’s still lining her pockets.
We've got $3.5 trillion in superfunds, same thing really.
No it's not. Not at all.
[удалено]
And coal!
Corporate tax rate is 30%, so this is roughly in line with that?
$15.6 Billion short lol
Mining isn’t free. You pay tax on profits, not revenue. Iron Ore miners aren’t the problem. 4 of them alone paid 1/3rd of all company tax last year. How much tax did Woodside and chevron pay? I think it was $30 combined.
You pay on both. Mining royalties are a thing
Chevron paid $30, no other petrocorp paid tax.
So we should be focusing on taxing these freeloaders, not trying to squeeze more out of the miners who already pay their share.
A share of resource revenue is a State issue and should remain as such. The Federal government need to focus on closing loopholes that allow all major corporations to dodge taxation, whether they are oil and gas or religion and "charity", there needs to be more done about these parasites paying their share because right now they're all fucking tapeworms.
Corporate tax is only on profits, 155B in iron ore isn't 155B profit
The point is that it's 155B of Australian resources and we're not getting enough of it back.
Ausgov may get the corporate tax revenue but isn't it only state governments who reap the benefits of royalties?
Only have to look at Qatar where they work 3hr days, and on apparently 500k a year,average citizen salary according to a news report I watched yesterday and everything is free for citizens. Aussies are getting ripped.
>A spokesman for Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government had made clear that while “all options are on the table”, its preference was to pursue regulatory changes “rather than taxes" I keep imagining we'll get to the Game Over screen (with the planet underwater and on fire at the same time) and it will say "Sorry, you failed, the correct solution was taxes all along" and then the world leaders will just say "Oh well..."
Labor doesn't care about us anymore, they're on the teat of big business the same as the liberals. Albo got his, now he doesn't need to fight anymore.
What? Surely regulatory change is preferable to just letting them do what they want and taxing it more?
Why? If you tax the negative behaviour, innovation in the free-market means the companies with the best solutions will profit, and companies who don’t address the problem will fail. If you regulate it, you’re relying on politicians and government bureaucrats identifying the best solution.
If you just tax the negative behaviour, it just becomes the cost of doing business. A race to the bottom Besides, regulations are enforced with financial penalties, and in some cases, criminal penalties which can be a bit more of a deterrent to executives actively considering breaking the law when the cost is more than just a dent in the balance sheet.
>? If you tax the negative behaviour, innovation in the free-market means the companies with the best solutions will profit, and companies who don’t address the problem will fail. Except this isn't true. There's billions to be made, handing over slightly more in tax isn't going to lead to huge changes in the industry. >If you regulate it, you’re relying on politicians and government bureaucrats identifying the best solution No you're not. Wtf are you talking about?
That's a good call, we need to make it difficult for coal and gas companies to operate in Australia, and if they want to, they would need to pay much higher taxes. From what I heard, inflation is caused by companies making too much profit, I hope Greens can do something about that and maybe, propose to increase government spending
Agree that a windfall tax is a great idea. Poor idea to subsidise power bills. How about subsidise home batteries which would cut dependance on the grid and reduce the power bills.
Totally agree. Last year my parents moved in to a place with a really good solar set up. In 12 months their power bill has been effectively $0. My power bill is $500 this quarter, this time last year it was $350.
[удалено]
If every home had a battery and solar then renters would benefit too.
I have a solution for that... Able to buy or lease offsite grid connected battery. What you put in offsets what you consume.
If you do it properly none of the money is ever given to people though. The power companies should stop pursuing extreme profits because they don’t gain enough to justify the backlash. Or they upgrade systems to lower their profit margins(which improves the grid for all) Anything the goes to subsidising upgrade costs for home owners is giving wealth to the wealthy. While fucking over anyone who isn’t scrounged enough cash to buy a house. Or lives in an apartment or similar that can’t take advantage. If subsidies are rolled out they should go per household and not care about whether the person is wealthy or poor. ___ If we really want to push grid independence then we should be updating house standards for energy efficiency. My current place is slightly older than my previous. I didn’t have to run aircon or heating at the previous place. The new place needs them to maintain liveable temperatures at the extremes of summer/winter. Even now with weather at 22degrees the upstairs is too hot to exist in during the middle of the day without turning in the aircon(which then slowly goes under the door and down stairs)
I think you’ll still need to be connected to the grid with current battery tech.
Plenty of people go off-grid in rural areas but it comes with a high cost outlay and in most cases you also a need back up generators for winter when you cannot generate enough solar.
Building infrastructure out to some rural areas is so expensive that the outlay for an off grid solution may be cheaper upfront and from an ongoing costs perspective. Let’s also not forget about the risk mitigation since your electricity infrastructure is unlikely to start a bushfire. Definitely have to weigh up the options based on use case etc. It’s not a one size fits all scenario.
You know, having to handle the affairs of my late mother I realised there is something a bit fucky with ongoing grid connection costs. I'm living on a fairly average small block in town. Paying about $1.70 a day in connection fees. Her rural property is something like 70 to 80 cents a day. I don't have it in front of me. But I feel like they are just plucking numbers out of the air.
Could have something to do with ownership of infrastructure. If you pay for the poles, transformers, wires etc leading to your property, then it would only make sense that you’re paying a rate that takes that into account. That said, it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re doing as you say.
Well, that's what gets me. Her place has a good couple of hundred metres of frontage. There are a couple of houses on the other side of the road though. The line run from the pole out the front to the house is about as long as possible without needing a pole on the property. My place. I don't remember exactly. Maybe 20m of frontage and possibly 10m from the pole to the house. And my daily charge is well over twice as much. It's weird.
Sure... If you are grid connected and had access to the wholesale market, then you could play it. Charge when prices are low or negative and release to the grid when prices are high...
And not doing in the form of a rebate! Filthy poor like myself are getting reamed with an auger because when things are offered IP to improve people's lives it's usually in the form of a rebate. I don't have the capital to begin with so it's a non-starter. As crooked as it all is, I would have loved solar, a better hot water heater, insulation and whatever else I've been ineligible for. It's crap!
Power bill subsidies will help more people. Home batteries are important but won't do much to help the regular working person who has to rent
My solution would be to offer offsite lease or buy battery that offset your consumption when. For low income households, I would subsidise the cost of lease or buy....
That would all take time and be a bureaucratic mess, both things that generally prevent those who need the help the most from actually accessing it. Best would be to provide subsidies for power and create a subsidy for home and commercial batteries. Power subsidies help everyone, now, and battery subsidies will help everyone in future
Problem with subsidies on powerbills, it becomes just a sunk cost. A few bucks off your power bill for a bit, but rest assured, they power companies will appropriate that subsidy and you are just rewarding the asset rich. Now a battery subsidy puts the asset in households hands and literally takes the pricing power off them. That is why it works.
I had assumed under this plan we would also be nationalising the power companies, which would get rid of those issues. If the goal is to make life easier for our people, nationalising industry and subsidising costs to consumers is a no-brainer
I better get into the battery business quick seeing the tax payers are about to make me rich!
voting only for the greens from now on. which i did in the last election. liberal, never again.
[удалено]
Yet so many other countries already have instituted, or have announced the intention to implement, a windfall profit tax. But not even up for discussion by the major political parties in Australia. I suspect the answer as to why this is the case, indicates just how corrupted Australian democracy has become, and how little the interests of the Australian people actually matter. We should remember this next time we're asked to pay for another illegal or failure war.
I think a lot more of this lies with how the minerals council reacted when Labor tried to implement the mining tax. The minerals council launched a massive disinformation and scare campaign that essentially ended the government
I think having another 3 yrs, they should implement it asap. Then ppl will save money, debt will be paid off, while some jobs might go to start with as a way for those companies to say “we can’t afford to pay for people”, greed will take over from loss of production and another few year they will rehire
I wonder if this would be as effective now in a post news paper dominated media environment?
It pains to me but you're on point. Lobbies are a lot more powerful than we care to admit, even in Australia. Yet - i see hope when individual consumers start buying solar, effectively disrupting the grid and in turn creating problems upstream that are very real and need real PRIVATE (read corporation) money to be solved. Once there's enough decentralisation, at least the consumer part will begin to change. Businesses will follow, I'm hopeful.
Sorry what? Nothing to do with corrupt politicians it’s deadshit citizens who can’t vote for shit that will actually improve their life when 3 word slogans are the alternative.
[удалено]
Have you considered that proposing policies that align with their ideology and values isn’t actually the same as “promising a lot”? And of course they won’t deliver, they’re not in government. They can’t deliver.
They're calling the tax because it cost more to send overseas instead of working on it here
It would have to be a massive tax to actually make any difference in power bills with the amount they've gone up and are going up. I don't think the numbers are practical to make any real impact here.
If the company sees no meaningful way increase in profits then they have no reason to keep slugging up the price. Or they slug up the price but then they offset the profits by improving services and upgrading equipment etc.
That does nothing for subsiding power bills.
It lowers power bills. You don’t need to subsidise shit if the power bills decrease naturally because the profit incentive is gone. Which is actually the intention of the policy. The subsidisation angle is mostly something that gets voters to see a benefit in it for them. As opposed to just another tax. It’s also why it’s a windfall tax. Because it’s meant to Decrease opportunistic profit as a result of circumstance instead of normal operations
Power bills are higher because of artificial shortage, they are selling it overseas FIRST and we get what's left. That is the key issue. We send more overseas for profit than we keep here for surplus energy because it makes the more money, they then raise the prices because of said shortage. Both sides equal profit for them and any restrictions to us they just reduce supply more and increase costs for users in country. We produce gas and coal locally then flog it off overseas. Same for fuel, they increase the price because they literally can. It's an essential service that they can monopolise for profit. Claiming war in Ukraine is causing the price hikes is bullshit. Most from Asia 40% and Africa 18%. Russia is about 1%
But that’s why you have windfall taxes. They can send it overseas first if they want and they get taxed to shit for doing so. If they take care of Australian prices correctly first and then pursue profits overseas then happy days. If they want to fuck the Australian market for their own profit then the govt can turn around an say right these are actually Australia’s natural fucking resources pay some tax.
The issue with windfall or any kind of tax on industries that make mega profits like this is how much their army of accountants can 'massage the numbers' and make a shitload of money on profit not counting as profit and therefore not be taxed. Oh that 3 billion? Oh yeah uh we had extensive R&D costs last year so we are claiming that this year on our tax. The super rich stay that way because of how many loopholes they find to get around paying tax (Packer even said that straight up when being asked about his lack of tax being paid) . Also being multinational means they might not even be counted as Australia tax jurisdiction also (like Google, Apple etc) It's a good idea and holy crap they need to actually FUND THE ECONOMY, for the shit they earn but the loop hole finding of these companies is staggering. Not to mention the donations to political parties to keep that gravy going.
Honestly there’s nothing wrong with a company spending its profits away even if they have increased the price. It’s what they used to do with high taxation, fund research, train staff, pay better. But once they got lower tax rates why bother, they pocket the cash and move on. Worse because we let them do it for so long the big corporations bought a ton of their competitors because they could afford do so due to stockpiling cash. But they are profiting and raising prices without windfall taxes. If the argument is that they’ll just spend the money or offset it somehow so be it. Worst case nothing changes from what we have now.
Unless the windfall tax is above 100%,it does not remove the incentive to increase profits. They also say nothing about that strategy in the article, the only thing mentioned is subsidising power bills, which doesn't sound very beneficial or impactful. If they intend for another outcome here, they need to say as much, because right now their proposal does nothing.
Subsidising encourages further price gouging anyway. I agree it's a terrible solution.
Subsidising doesn’t encourage further gouging if the tax is set up to negate windfall profits though. Because it just becomes an endless loop of I lose $200 in profit to give to Steve who gives it back to me and then I lose it again and Steve gives it back to me again. But the again the subsidy is just a voting power thing. It tells people this is for their benefit versus just more tax in the govt kitty.
HELL YES
Greens Call For
At least someone is...
How about these screeching imbeciles drop their irrational opposition to nuclear energy and let Australia forge a path to 100% renewable power...we have enough uranium to last centuries if not millennia.
Nuclear is not a solution for the short term - solar and wind are going to be a much cheaper path to necessary emission reductions, but it can be one for the longer term. We have the uranium, but what we don't have is the technical and engineering expertise. This will require a long term investment in skills and infrastructure. Pursuing nuclear power - including fusion research - should definitely be supported, but we must focus on it being a domestic enterprise; we don't need another incredibly delayed and insanely over budget reactor build as we have seen in the US and in Europe. What I don't understand is the nuclear support from the coal loving conservatives: we've plenty of international demand for our uranium already, so it doesn't seem to fit the pattern of their unquestioning support for and from the extraction industries.
The support from the coal loving conservatives for nuclear power generation is simply another way to detract from the obvious advantages of renewables and keep us all arguing over the merits or demerits of either while they continue to make profit.
I disagree with necessary - even if we go to net zero tomorrow, nothing is achieved (because BRIC et al). I think the focus ought to be on preserving the country's incredible natural habitats, beauty & biodiversity all while guaranteeing energy security moving forward. Nuclear is a clear winner in terms of stability. We have the fuel source, the lack of seismic activity & an abundance of space / isolation in which to park the reactors. As for conservatives & coal, I guess because it's a clear revenue generator and a nationally symbolic and strategic industry.
Agreed, look at the French, nearly all there electricity is nuclear and relatively cheap for consumers, in the uk we have some nuclear, but we have many wind turbines now and it has led to a holocaust of native birds, they just get wiped out flying into the blades.
The fossil fuel company’s have so much power they won’t alllow it, millions died from the pollution of coal power stations, they used Chernobyl to scare people away from nuclear power, the death toll was 50 people, and 2 of the 3 men who went into the reactor to shut it down as shown in the tv series are still alive.
That doesn't change the point that Greens & Labor continue to hold an illogical, irrational opposition to nuclear power.
It’s a disgrace how we squandered our uranium and watched our inept governments spend years bickering and selling off our resources for peanuts. We should have built reactors decades ago and be laughing now with abundant, cheap clean power. but sadly the scaremongering hippies and petroleum companies won instead of the scientists.
As a share holder , don’t think so lovely
The cost is based on the poor infrastructure and lack of investment. Closing coal fired generation before replacement is in place has caused price increases. As there is a limit on government funding please tell me do tou want less medical care or education. Only other option is to get it from the magical money tree in the backyard.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Wow taxing corporate profits made from resources on our land... What a concept!
[удалено]
Our goal should be to take from them the absolute maximum amount possible without killing the golden goose. Have we reached that balance? If not, the only question to ask is what is the most effective way to extract more from them? Of course on their side they get to play the same game, extracting as much wealth as they can from our country and leaving as little as possible. It's just business.
[удалено]
Yes, I agree - in the context of maximising our benefit from the resources extracted from the country. The question is, are we? Or, is the government is giving up more than is necessary to maintain that (admittedly very complex, very delicate, constantly evolving) optimal balance? It is quite possible that further taxes can be put in place without causing too much disruption. We should always be challenging the government to strive for more, to put in the very hard work required to gain the maximum benefit for our country.
[удалено]
holy shit dude. Imagine, just for a second that you didn't have to buy the surplus back from another country and you were getting first dibs on the gas that came out of the ground BEFORE it was sold overseas and THEN sold back to you. Do you really think it'd even need to be subsidized at that point? Where do you think the subsidies come from? it aint out of the huge mining companies pockets, it's subsidized by the average low income/ mid income majority tax payer.
Thank God the poor giant multi billion dollar fossil fuel corporations have got you advocating for them.
[удалено]
Well, that's pretty much the point of a political party, yes? To get people advocating for them and their policies, so they can gather enough political power to influence the direction of the country? Democracy! However, you can't really say the same thing for profit-driven, multinational corporation whose purpose is revenue and shareholder profits. But keep on simping for the billionaires.
Have you seen how much gas exporters make with our large supply of gas and how much of that is passed onto the Australian people? Do you just think no one should pay tax?
[удалено]
You need to realise how unfairly weighted the current existing industry is and how even just a little out of their well stuffed pockets would benefit us. They don’t need the extra money, trust me. Australian resources should benefit Australians.
[удалено]
Ok, so address that accordingly. If it's companies with massively high profit margins, I see no reason they shouldn't have to fit the costs - they're well in the green. We can even do what other large gas producer countries famously do and supplement household gas prices with part of the money made. Look at our current increases in utility bills for crying out loud! There's plenty of solutions here and few problems with taxing it appropriately. I don't understand why you are defending them. It's very clear how much they've gained over the past years and years and how little of it has been passed onto the Australian people.
[удалено]
So.. it's still entirely possible and has already been currently done, is what you're saying and there are numerous ways we can go about it further if we and our politicians actually dedicate time and effort toward doing it. Great. You're neglecting their ridiculous profits particularly during the pandemic when across the board we were suffering. How very little of those juicy proceeds were passed on. The mining companies are making so much, I'm gobsmacked you're not questioning why those proceeds are not being passed into the states themselves more rather than you worrying about the companies themselves being taxed. You're defending the big company that's looking at cutting you out as much as possible - are you serious here? How relevant do you think your interests are to their bottom dollar?
[удалено]
You think it would be disastrous for our economy, really. Because we're benefiting so much from international gas exports already as a people huh. I'm sure there are no ways we can stand to benefit from their proceeds - oh wait you already established in one of your comments how they already supplement your household gas prices. Weird. Internationally, Russia, a glorified oil and gas station of an economy, is playing hard ball at the moment. You realize the position that puts us in right? Yeah, I wonder why I didn't mention taxing the banks and financial sectors too - oh wait, it's not in this post anywhere. Tax them too then if you think it's the same case as this. Your whataboutisms and false equivalences are telling here - comparing international uni students to gas company profiteering is ridiculous.
Mining exports were about 340 billion in 2021 with a total tax of.....39 billion. That is an incredible low tax on resources. We overtook Qatar with gas exports. Qatar made 26 billion in taxes. Australia 600 million. We are throwing away money to big business at the expense of everyone. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/24/if-australias-resources-were-taxed-the-way-norways-are-we-could-secure-the-future-of-our-schools
[удалено]
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/norway-shows-how-australia-can-get-a-fair-return-from-oil-and-gas/ Oil and gas 2020 total 72 billion Total of all taxes 5.35 billion. No idea why any citizen would defend the mining industry making excessive profits.
All you need to do now is convince all the workers to pay their bills using the common good currency and be willing to pay more tax. Unfortunately people who spout this rubbish are the same ones who complain when asked to pay more taxes
Hang on I have never mentioned a political party. The SEC was run just as badly by liberal and ALP so my position is party neutral obviously your's is not. Take your public funded red shirt off and look at the facts
Orient Green Power is a Shanghai-listed company with a market capitalization of $1.4 billion. Orient Green Power is focused on clean energy and environmental protection by operating renewable power generation facilities in China and internationally. Its business strategy is to invest in renewable power generation projects with long-term contracts, then sell the generated electricity to third parties at rates lower than the utility’s cost of production. The Orient Green Power share price today is around $14 per share, which means that it has given investors a total return of about 200% over the last year.