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NATIONWIDE ELECTRIFICATION ACCELERATOR PROJECTS TO REDUCE HOUSEHOLD ENERGY BILLS

New suburb-wide electrification accelerator projects across Australia to speed up the energy transition and save households money are being considered following an agreement between the government and crossbench senators David Pocock, David Van, Jacqui Lambie and Lidia Thorpe.

Under the agreement, Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has written to ARENA exercising his special ministerial referral powers for the first time to ask the board to consider funding the projects.

All projects will be subject to final independent assessment by the ARENA board before proceeding.

However, the ministerial referral paves the way for potentially thousands of households, including people who are renting and in lower socio-economic areas to benefit from a transition to fully electric homes that may have otherwise been out of reach.

This would include things like solar panels and household batteries but extends beyond to also explore the potential of vehicle to the home, vehicle to grid and shared community energy storage technologies.

The accelerator projects would allow chosen suburbs to act as test beds for the kinds of regulatory changes that will be required to roll out electrification at scale and also assess the different forms of government support needed to achieve full electrification.

The accelerator projects would be modelled off the North Wollongong community electrification testbed project ARENA funded in 2024. It would also include at least one First Nations community. 

Senator Pocock said household electrification is something he campaigned on and paid tribute to the work of Electrify Canberra and Rewiring Australia in harnessing community support behind the initiative.

“In this cost-of-living crisis one of highest-impact, non-inflationary things governments can do is to help households electrify and deliver thousands in permanent power bill relief,” Senator Pocock said.

“Globally the built environment accounts for 39% of energy related carbon emissions so electrification will also have a huge impact in our efforts to combat climate change.”

Support for the accelerator projects was central to the crossbenchers support for the first tranche of the government’s Future Made in Australia legislation.

“I have said from the start that one of the big missed opportunities in Future Made in Australia as a response to the Inflation Reduction Act was support for household electrification. This agreement helps remedy that gap,” Senator Pocock said.

"I am glad that the Government has come to the Party - I wish they had thought of this themselves. Surely giving low income people the chance to save money on their power bills would be a no-brainer? But they didn't, but thank God we have a strong cross bench and the government has come to the party. There's an election around the corner and I hope the Australian people will stick with the voting trend - only by having a strong independent crossbench can we get things like this done," Senator Jacqui Lambie said.

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