Home power

LET’S try and get it right. Recently the WA government announced a plan to take up the excess power generated by solar rooftop during the day.

About $100 million will be spent installing massive batteries at the Kwinana and Collie power stations; sounds OK but if the government is serious about getting us into EVs then surely the money would be better spent subsidising battery tech at home. 

Like many West Australians, I have solar on my roof; initially I was getting paid a reasonable amount for the power I generated but that has now dropped to around 7 cents a kilowatt and then I have to buy it back again at 24 cents – a loser. 

We are all generating so much daytime solar that it is a problem for the grid that’s only going to get worse.

Friends in the UK who own EVs all have home batteries – it’s the only practical way the system can work. 

No one that I know with an EV drives to a service station and sits there for hours. Think about it, your EV doesn’t need to be fully charged every time and that’s the reason service stations will eventually become a thing of the past. 

Just plug the car in at the end of the day and use your own solar; we are told it’s the power that the grid doesn’t want anyway so home batteries would take that stress out of the system a winner for all, and we would also have the extra benefit of the car batteries as backup power if there was a blackout. 

Coffee shops with charging points and supermarkets will be the norm for putting another hundred ks in the car while you shop. That’s what’s happening all over Europe, it’s the future.

What is being proposed here will not help any EV transition, just take the whole idea of EVs further and further out of reach for most of us.  

J Paterson
White Gum Valley

Rotto wrong

ON observation I see the rapid deterioration for our beloved Rotto of yesterday. 

Progress appears to be in the wrong direction; ugly, getting out of hand … and whining!

Something is very wrong. 

My vision of Rotto is, yes, progressive but with some sort of continuity.

You had a beautiful base and you are letting it get away and out of hand. 

Afraid of upsetting someone or another there is no passion in the restoration of our beautiful gentle jewel. 

It was a prison, respect that and move on. 

The original architecture is both unique and charming. 

Take a huge look (and lesson) at Santorini, Greece, one of the most inviting and sought-after holiday resorts in the world. 

Take a look at Freo ( Not Perth … a classic example of a beautiful city brutalised).

The problem is not the investors or developers … if they are winning, you the people who profess to love what she was and yet grumble about her changing…you are at fault! 

You are not strong enough in your conviction or passion.

Get some new voices. 

Get renewed passion, FIGHT for her. 

My happy place is deteriorating and I am angry! 

Morgana Morgan
Canning Vale

Interesting point

RAISING interest rates in order to reduce the amount of money that people will then have to spend as a way of reducing inflation, that sacred cow, is utter lunacy when all that happens in that the banks rake in more vast amounts of money, and household stress is exponentially increased.

This will only stop when enough people, if not ALL mortgagees, simply stop paying any mortgage until this is rectified.

The action is bound to be successful if there is united action. 

We want to pay our mortgages, but not when they become excessive due to a crazy policy.

Is there such a thing as a mortgagees’ union?

If not, it might be urgent to start one, before it is banned.

Carla van Raay
Willagee

The shine’s come off Freo

A BEGGAR man’s a better man shining shoes. 

As a proud Freo-born West Australian and a “Sunny Sandgroper” I’m concerned over the High Street Homeless Highway that starts from the Fremantle Town Hall clock through Culley’s alfresco and all the way to 711.

It’s time to clean up our streets and ban all the deadbeats – not take away the seats. 

The Fremantle community safety officers are inexperienced, plain under-qualified to be interacting with anyone in the community.

I’ve seen with my own eyes how they behave in ways that are an exacerbation to this problem. 

Oh! And unless you’re a busker, performer or shining shoes then you should not be permitted to beg anywhere near the heart of Fremantle.

Peter Florenca
Hamilton Hill