Power up … the Energy Australia building in George St, Sydney / Pic: Simon Bullard Source: The Daily Telegraph
AT LEAST there’s one place in NSW where they don’t worry about the power bill.
As ordinary families find more and more ways to cut their electricity use and keep their soaring power bills down, the lights were blazing all weekend at Energy Australia’s Sydney headquarters.
Even at 5.42am on Sunday floor after floor was lit up. But a spokeswoman for Energy Australia said it was because staff were hard at work.
“The electricity network operates 24 hours a day and Energy Australia staff work around the clock and outside normal business hours,” the spokeswoman said.
Energy Australia has led an energy efficiency campaign, telling customers “the simplest way to save on lighting is to switch them off in rooms that aren’t being used”.
The Daily Telegraph visited Energy Australia’s George St head office three times over the weekend and found up to 12 floors lit up at a time.
Energy Australia’s customers face electricity bill price rises of 64 per cent by 2013, after pricing tribunal IPART’s approval.
Families face $918 a year rises while small businesses will pay thousands more.
A brochure boasts “at Energy Australia we pride ourselves on helping households and businesses reduce their energy use” with some appliances such as plasma televisions and clothes dryers adding more than $70 to a yearly bill.
It recommends customers shower for a “couple of minutes” less, consider getting rid of old fridges, wash clothes in cold water and buy compact fluorescent lamps in place of energy-sapping light globes.
But the Energy Australia spokeswoman said the George St head office was energy efficient with lights set to go out automatically. It housed call centre staff 24 hours a day as well as control room staff.
Lighting automatically turned on at 6am and went off at 8.30pm on floors which didn’t operate 24 hours a day.
“Other lights are activated at night when cleaners are working in the building or when staff come into work outside normal business hours,” the spokeswoman said.
While Energy Australia has recommended customers should reconsider their beer fridge, the state’s 135 MPs have bar fridges in their offices. Energy Australia said a bar fridge costs $57 a year to run in power.
MPs yesterday said they used the fridges to cater for visitors and even to store milk so they could offer a coffee to guests.
Opposition environment spokeswoman Catherine Cusack said the parliament had tried to be more energy efficient but there had been problems, including with the way solar panels had been installed.
She also criticised the energy consumption of the Department of Environment after it also took on the portfolio of climate change.
The carbon emissions grew from 18,619 tonnes to 22,066 tonnes after its energy consumption shot up.
