Green power push through Australia's "Green Start" program
Tuesday December 8, 2009
Green energy power is now being pushed by the Federal Government through a number of initiatives and programs, designed to make the transition to clean energy sources easier for many Australians.
Low-income and disadvantaged households in Australia will soon be benefitting from one such program as the Federal Government begins to rollout its Green Start program in 2010.
Basically the Green Start program has been designed with the intention of conserving a households water and energy efficiency levels using a selection of different renewable resources that are being launched over the coming years.
Households that qualify for the Green Start program will be able to receive a number of free services including:
- free home energy and water assessment
- supply and installation of some energy and water efficiency items
- personalised assistance when it comes to looking into the various local, state and federal water and energy efficiency programs
Environment Minister Peter Garrett explained that the $130 million initiative was targeting low-incomeand disadvantaged households who were predominately renters rather than homeowners, meaning that both the renters and the landlords would benefits in various ways.
Essentially the Minister conveyed that while the Green Start program would offer the educational aspect for wiser energy consumption, it would also assist landlords, real estate agencies and electricians with water and energy efficiency measures.
Mr Garrett stated that the Green Start program is "..our very, very strong signal that we want all Australians, including those who are less advantaged, to have the opportunity to take on board those energy efficiency measures which we know can make a difference to their pocket-books and to our atmosphere."
Another initiative of the Federal Government towards the clean energy movement include the GreenPower program, which currently has over 900,000 Australian households and businesses signed up.
GreenPower is presented as a government accreditation program for renewable energy using sources such as biomass, wind power and mini hydro.
GreenPower meets the highest environmental standards and works by consumers choosing to pay a few extra cents on their electricity accounts that are then passed onto investments into the renewable energy sector.
The benefits of using the government GreenPower program are listed to include:
- pushing the consumer demand for renewable energy
- significantly reducing a households total greenhouse emissions, with the GreenPower program meant to reduce this by around 50 per cent
- reducing the production of greenhouse gasses by using a source of energy not dependent on fossil fuels
- reduce water consumption as the GreenPower program uses less water than other traditional forms of power stations, forms that occupy that majority of the energy market with the burning of fossil fuels taking around 90 per cent of the entire electricity market
- currently 34 per cent of Australia's emissions come from electricity generation, the largest single contributor of greenhouse emissions in Australia
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