The Vic­to­ri­an Bud­get 2020⁄21 will deliv­er the biggest house­hold ener­gy effi­cien­cy pack­age in any state’s his­to­ry, cre­at­ing thou­sands of jobs, while also reduc­ing green­house gas emissions.

The invest­ment includes $335 mil­lion to replace old wood, elec­tric or gas fired heaters with new ener­gy-effi­cient sys­tems that are safer and cheap­er to run, while also dri­ving down emis­sions. The pro­gram will be open to low-income earn­ers and save 250,000 house­holds between $300 to $900 each year on their ener­gy bills.

A fur­ther $112 mil­lion will seal win­dows and doors, and upgrade heat­ing, cool­ing and hot water in 35,000 social hous­ing prop­er­ties – slash­ing bills and mak­ing homes more comfortable.

To reduce ener­gy bills for ten­ants, the Vic­to­ri­an Gov­ern­ment will intro­duce min­i­mum effi­cien­cy stan­dards for rental prop­er­ties. The stan­dards are expect­ed to ben­e­fit renters liv­ing in around 320,000 poor-qual­i­ty accom­mo­da­tion, ensur­ing they don’t have to have to put up with old, dodgy heaters and cold, poor­ly insu­lat­ed homes.

The Vic­to­ri­an Gov­ern­ment is also pro­vid­ing fund­ing to help set Vic­to­ria up for the move to 7‑star effi­cien­cy stan­dards for new homes, sup­port­ing skills, train­ing and jobs in our con­struc­tion sector.

The Vic­to­ri­an Gov­ern­ment will also step in and help those fac­ing more imme­di­ate hard­ship, with a one-off $250 pay­ment for eli­gi­ble con­ces­sion card hold­ers, includ­ing any­one receiv­ing Job­Seek­er, youth allowance or pen­sion payments.

The direct bill relief is avail­able to help an esti­mat­ed 950,000 Vic­to­ri­an house­holds who would oth­er­wise strug­gle to pay the bills and put food on the table.

Every sin­gle Vic­to­ri­an house­hold will be able to access rebates for more smart appli­ances, with a $14 mil­lion expan­sion of the exist­ing Vic­to­ri­an Ener­gy Upgrades program.

More than 100,000 house­holds have now installed pow­er sta­tions on their roof through the Vic­to­ri­an Government’s Solar Homes pro­gram. To help more Vic­to­ri­ans get the ben­e­fits of solar, the Vic­to­ri­an Gov­ern­ment will pro­vide $191 mil­lion to expand its land­mark Solar Homes program.

This includes 42,000 addi­tion­al solar rebates, mean­ing a total of 140,000 house­holds will be able to install solar pan­els on their roof at no upfront cost over next two years. And for the very first time, small busi­ness­es will also be able to apply – with 15,000 solar rebates for businesses.

In addi­tion, Vic­to­ri­ans in every cor­ner of the state will now be able to apply for a Solar Homes bat­tery, with the Vic­to­ri­an Gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ing 17,500 house­hold bat­tery rebates over the next three years. 

Source — Solar Victoria