Residential Case Studies for NSW and Victoria
11 April 2023
NEW Residential case studies for NSW and Victorian gas homes, over 830,000 across both states (2 million nationally), show the claims about electric appliances being better on costs and emissions are overcooked. In fact, dead wrong.
Frontier Economics found that looking at appliance costs and energy bills, continuing with LPG remains lower cost for homeowners to the 2040s, when LPG and electrical appliance-use cost the same.
Switching to the most efficient electrical appliances, households would incur $11,871 in upfront costs (appliance and installation), save a few hundred dollars over a year on bills, but would only reduce emissions by between 5.4kg (NSW) and 9kg (Victoria) per week. That's the volume of typical BBQ cylinder.
In NSW it would take 14 years for homeowners to get a return on that investment. In Victoria it's 12 years. The cost of carbon abatement is $282.65 in Victoria and $707.81 in NSW per tonne. Respectively, that's eight-to-20 times higher than the going rate for Australian carbon credits.
Faced with these costs, families might opt for cheaper, though less efficient, electrical appliances thinking they're still doing the right thing. But they'd be wrong.
Emissions from cheaper electrical appliances are actually higher than sticking with existing gas appliances. In NSW the emissions increase in switching to lower efficiency electrical appliances is 640kg per dwelling a year, while in Victoria it's a whopping 960kg a year.
This dispels the myth that electricity is, by default, cheaper and lower emitting than gas. But it gets worse.
These costs are only for appliance replacement. What is often hidden from consumers are the additional costs as all-electric homes typically require upgrading from Phase 1 to Phase 3 wiring throughout. Depending on the size of the premises, these costs can run to over $40,000 per dwelling.
Both case studies are provided below.
File downloads
- Preview Residential Case Study - NSW (PDF 249.1 kb)
- Preview Residential Case Study - Victoria (PDF 254.1 kb)
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