Charging ahead: The postcode going all in on electrification

More Australians are pushing for an all-electric future and one coastal community in New South Wales is gearing up to get there first.

After a two-year campaign led by passionate locals, Electrify 2515 was launched in late October.

The first of its kind in Australia - and quite possibly the world - the pilot project is funding 500 homes in the Northern Illawarra 2515 postcode, south of Sydney, to switch to renewable energy.

The goal? Not only to reduce energy costs and emissions, but to demonstrate how every household in Australia can do the same thing.

Heating, cooling, cooktops and batteries

Electrify 2515 is the brainchild of a local resident, engineer Saul Griffith, renewable energy advocate and co-founder of Rewiring Australia.

The groundbreaking pilot is an $11.8 million partnership between Rewiring Australia, the green home loan provider Brighte and the electricity distribution network operator Endeavour Energy, with $5.4 million in Federal funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

Tradespeople from across the Illawarra region will be involved in delivering the pilot, bringing new job opportunities and an economic boost to the area.

Under the pilot, residents in 2515 can apply for subsidies of up to $1000 for electric hot water systems, reverse-cycle air-conditioners and induction cooktops, and up to $1500 for home batteries, totalling between $5000 and $10,000 per household, depending on income.

Each eligible household will have installed a free smart energy device to optimise their energy use and switchboard upgrades to support the new appliances.

Additional incentives are available for lower-income households, including subsidies up to $1500 for appliances and $4000 for a battery. Participants can also apply for a Brighte green loan to cover the costs after subsidies.

Selection of the 500 applicants aims for a realistic representation of different income levels, building types and household compositions.

How much can electrification save households?

Once participants have made the switch, they can watch the savings roll in.

According to a Rewiring Australia analysis, the average household using gas for its cooking, hot water and heating could save up to $800 a year by converting to efficient electric systems.

Add rooftop solar and a battery, and it can be up to $3000 a year. "Go all-electric and you could save $150,000 over 15 years," says Griffith.

The initiative will collect real-world data on a concentrated and rapid electrification of a community, measuring consumer behaviour and attitudes, energy bill savings and the impact on the local grid to shed light on how home electrification could be expanded nation-wide.

"The pilot aims to create the electric future in a real community today," says Griffith.

"Around half of the world's emissions are things that people decide around the kitchen table - what car they drive, how they cook their food and heat their home.

"Our research will uncover any barriers that make electrification harder than it should be and highlight market reforms required to make the transition economically efficient.

"Australia is the leading rooftop-solar nation. Pilots like these will allow us to invent the clean consumer energy model for the whole world."

An appetite for change

Getting something as ambitious as this off the ground was never going to be easy, but the volunteers behind the campaign weren't about to let red tape or the fact it had never been done before get in their way.

"This was essentially a dozen residents and their 15 children door knocking, writing pamphlets, letter-dropping and holding town halls over two years. They won it for their community because they showed up," says Griffith.

Their first step was canvassing the 4000 or so households in the area in 2022 to gauge local interest in the idea. More than 1500 people said they were keen to take part.

The numbers haven't let up since, with the pilot receiving more than 100 applications within the first 24 hours of its launch.

While the success of the project won't be fully known until research concludes in April 2027, the interest and engagement in electrification alone are wins to be celebrated, says Griffith.

"We've already succeeded because we've shown that the Australian public are ready for this and are willing to take some risks and conduct experiments."

Case study: Annual electricity bills halved

Reading Saul Griffith's book The Big Switch in 2022 inspired long-term Thirroul resident Laura Scalafiotti to ask him: What would it take for our postcode to be the test case for electrification?

"The rest is history," she says. "I got involved because the climate crisis is front of mind. This pilot addresses not only that, but issues around fairness, opportunity, health and equity.

"Imagine if people on low incomes never again had to pay one electricity, gas or petrol bill."

Scalafiotti is an Electrify 2515 volunteer and has already taken steps to electrify her four-bedroom home.

"We upgraded our 1kWh solar system to a 10.6kWh one, which cost around $9000, and replaced our gas and low-efficient electric heating with a reverse-cycle air-conditioner for around $2000. We've made a partial switch to induction by adding two portable induction cooktops.

We have also purchased an electric vehicle, which cost around $65,000, and an EV charger. Our electricity bill halved from around $2400 to $1200 between June 2023 and June 2024.

"If we get chosen for the pilot, we will switch our hot water to electric and get a proper induction stove and a battery."

Case study: Passion trumps short-term profit

Photographer Jeremy Park, who has lived in Thirroul for 13 years, has electrified his own home and two rentals.

"I feel passionately that those who can afford to do something about man-made climate change should do something," he says.

"Landlords can write off rental improvements with depreciation, so tax-wise it seemed to be a responsible action that I can afford. I am not doing it for a short-term profit but as a long-term investment."

The costs of electrifying a home can be large.

"With a mortgage, we were able to tackle it in steps," says Park. "We started by installing solar panels, then replaced appliances with electric ones as they needed upgrading.

"We finally replaced the gas water heaters with heat pumps. The most substantial expense was upgrading the switchboard when we switched off the gas. We plan to look into the cost for batteries in 2025."

The two solar installations cost Park around $16,000, a mid-range heat pump cost $3500 and ducted air-conditioning about $12,000. He also has two electric vehicles (EVs), which cost about $115,000.

"We don't get large power bills, thanks to the solar and heat pump efficiency. We were getting credits on our electricity accounts in summer for many years.

"Since buying the two EVs our power bills have risen from around $400 to $1000 a year. But I estimate that we were spending about $7000 a year on petrol before, which we're not now."

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