A cohesive nationwide plan will help drive down the cost of household electrification

A new report produced by researchers at Monash University has found the absence of a cohesive nationwide household electrification plan has resulted in a patchwork approach to electrification at both the state and the federal level.

The researchers from the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub (MCCCRH) assessed the policies of the federal and state governments and scored each of them on their key policies, such as electrification strategies, energy justice initiatives, focus on health, and financial incentives for residential electrification.

They found Australian states and territories vary widely on the initiatives they have for household electrification.

“The ACT performs the best on residential electrification policy, particularly in areas such as financial support initiatives and household emissions reduction,” says Dr James Burgmann-Milner, a co-author of the report Switching on: benefits of household electrification in Australia.

The ACT’s strategies are designed to expedite residential electrification and include a gas phase-out date as well as incentives for households through the Energy Efficiency Improvement Scheme and the Sustainable Household Scheme.

“Victoria also performs relatively well, in spite of its historical reliance on gas,” says Burgmann-Milner. “Its higher score is mostly due to very recent policies, which include skills and training funding for the electrification workforce, as well as a ‘roadmap’ to getting off gas.”

However, Burgmann says, “across all states there is a significant amount of work to be done.”

A striking gap across all levels of government is the limited focus on building the workforce that will be essential to implement mass residential electrification in Australia at the required scale.

The report also found that states also don't prioritise the health co-benefits of residential electrification, or justice-focused polices that reduce the barriers to improve access to residential electrification.

Most states don’t perform well compared to the ACT, although the challenges faced by these states differ greatly.

Despite being the sunniest region in Australia, the Northern Territory has a low renewable energy uptake, with less than 10% of current electricity supply generated from renewable sources.

The NT’s rooftop solar installation rate is half that of neighbouring Western Australia and Queensland, despite a similar climate.

Western Australia and Queensland both lack dedicated plans for residential electrification, and WA has “a particular gap in skills and training of an electrification workforce,” says Burgmann-Miller.

Although Queensland has the highest rate of household solar installation, their lack of a dedicated plan to electrify households puts “the potential financial and health co-benefits of electrification in the sunshine state out of reach of many low-income households.”

The Monash researchers would like to see the next Energy Ministers meeting work towards developing a national strategy for electrification.

“Without a nationwide approach, we're likely to see policy roll out in a disjointed, and therefore ineffective, manner. This could stifle innovation and slow our reduction of emissions,” says MCCCRH project coordinator Amelia Pearson.

“A nationwide strategy will help drive down the cost of electrification for households, with many benefits flowing across the states’ shared workforces, ideally under national training programs to ensure quality and consistency,” says Pearson.

It’s estimated the electrification of Australia’s residential gas appliances could create around 20,000 full time jobs over a ten-year period, mainly as electricians and plumbers, with the majority of jobs in Victoria and NSW.

To meet this growing demand Australia needs a rapid increase in its workforce. Pearson says Energy Ministers must focus on building workforce capability “so we have the people-power to transition at scale.”