On July 25, international rockstar-engineer Dr Saul Griffith filled City Hall to launch Empowering Newcastle!
By Kassia Klinger, author and environmentalist.
The Rewiring Australia co-founder born 1974 in south-western Sydney has a long affectionate connection to the city. His first “real job” was on the rod and bar mill line. Griffith loved heavy industry, worked in aluminium smelting then steelmaking before furthering his studies and launching his stellar US career.
This was the first of three, free events hosted by the City of Newcastle. Mayor Nuatali Nelmes developed a professional relationship with Griffith and managed to lure him back with the enthusiastic support of the climate change and sustainability team. Before welcoming the “Electrify Everything” guru to stage, Mayor Nelmes outlined the City’s ambitious 2021-25 Climate Action Plan.
Griffith is a 2024 Australian of the Year nominee, best-selling author, and clean energy advocate. He captivated the enthusiastic crowd with his affable, knockabout persona. He manages to convert complex global issues, mountains of mind-numbing data, countless mistruths/conspiracy theories and loads of green-energy hype into easy to digest, common sense and simple-action fixes to seeming intractable climate change problems to empower ordinary citizens.
This optimistic self-confessed “bogan” has an infectious gift of the gab. He connects with people of all types, cuts through jargon, uses scientific/economic research data and offers sensible small scale plus short-term fixes with an eye on the medium to long term with local, regional, national even international ramifications.
His aim is to increase energy literacy. Based on Griffith’s wins in the US with Rewiring America which helped shape the historic US Inflation Reduction Act, the largest ever energy transition and electrification investment, he’s onto a winning strategy.
The wizard of Oz returns…
Returning to Australia in 2021, with wife Arwen and two children, Griffith said it was a coin-toss to decide where they’d settle, Wollongong or Newcastle? The Gong won. The inventor has been busy setting-up Electrify 2515, his coastal town Austinmer’s postcode, and now the community is on a mission to become Australia’s first all-electric suburb.
But all’s not lost for Newy. The science nerd turned typist, as he calls his writing career, is jumping out of his skin to inspire and help set-up communities across the country, by putting the electrify everything theory into practice.
His inspiration?
Griffith’s mother is a wildlife artist plus early Greenpeace activist and his father a retired professor. So it’s easy to see why the ‘A’ for art in STEM (science technology engineering and maths education) becoming STEAM is so important for the University of Sydney masters graduate and Massachusetts Institute of Technology PhD awardee.
Non-profit Rewiring Australia’s basic message is that people power will generate power-for-the-people, benefit our planet plus be priced to help the cost of living and our national budgets. Their work focuses on education/communication, advocacy on policy/regulation/financing, research, and deployment by working with councils and communities on the ground.
Costs and benefits?
Many of us have heard how the upfront costs of installing solar panels, batteries, and cost-efficient electric appliances – including electric vehicles – leads to jaw-dropping emission reductions and costs saved at an individual house level of up to 90% or $4,958 a year.
Upgrades tend to pay for themselves in a matter of years, then it’s a simple matter of cost savings from there. Many details from Griffith’s keynote presentation along with others can be found on the Rewiring Australia website.
One main reason preventing the ramp-up, increasing the speed and number of homes transforming themselves into distributed power stations and storage hubs, is the upfront cost.
The take home message outlined their 2024-25 pre-budget submission to the Australian Government is the Feds could loan householders the cost of equipment to electrify their homes using the discount rate they already enjoy. It would offer every Australian homeowner the opportunity to buy now and pay later, on no interest terms only increasing with the cost of inflation.
Like the Higher Education Contributions Scheme students only pay back their HECS loan when able or once their salary reaches a certain level. Of course, it can be paid when it suits the individual’s life situation voluntarily regularly or in one go. If not achieved it can be paid as a lump sum, with costs, on sale of the property. Rewiring Australia calls it Electrify Everything Loans Scheme.
It’s important to note however the program wouldn’t help renters directly. It would of course include property investors who could take advantage of the EELS program. Along with this opportunity Rewiring Australia suggest mandatory energy efficiency minimum standards plus disclosure for prospective tenants.
Costs research finds the EELS program would be $4bn per year. This compares to the federal Budget ie all of us taxpayers already funding $3bn per year subsidising households who struggle to pay power bills, otherwise they’d fall into power-poverty. Yes, in Australia, in 2024! Can you believe it?
Savings?
Not only would Aussie consumers save $1.7 trillion by 2050, consumer emissions would also be 64% lower and it would help the Feds meet its renewable energy target of 82% by 2030.
As an engineer, Griffith sees the program not only leading to a more resilient plus secure network as it builds flexibility, it would kickstart local manufacturing also becoming a job creator. He reckons the energy transformation will be tradie-led. Griffith sees this as a once in a lifetime opportunity.
With 30% of homes in Australia already fitted with solar panels it seems when people lead, the leaders follow. Who would’ve known this humble Aussie kid, who loved mucking around with trucks, planes and cars would end up leading this global consumer-energy evolution?
Useful links:
- Electrify2515
- Rewiring Australia
- City of Newcastle Empowering Newcastle
- Confessions of ethical inve$ting, published 2014. By Kassia Klinger.