My energy bill for mid-winter just for one listing went up by almost $5/day, around an 80% increase. We have solar too but people seem to think solar is some holy grail. Why? It only works during the day and only provides a certain amount of energy, it's not unlimited free energy all day long. And of course, when you need it most - in winter at night - it's useless. And by the time we've actually paid it off, the tech will be out of date and then you have to start over again, PLUS I reckon in the future we'll all have to pay extra fees to safely dispose of the panels. We got solar panels on our other house in Qld, the bill went down the first quarter, and then bounced right back up and is now $200 more than last year, plus I am paying monthly payments to the solar company. Our govt is doing its best to outlaw wood burning fires in homes, but this is madness too, because rolling blackouts in winter (that's in all our futures if we continue to rely on solar/wind) will be an absolute disaster for the colder states.
What to do?
We are going to invest in buying 20t of wholesale firewood this summer, it's a big hit to take but the cost is 30% less and we should be able to sell some of it off to locals in small trailer loads. We might even be able to offset our own costs by up to 70% (with a little of our sweat equity of course). Our state govt is apparently offering farms "free" batteries for solar systems, I need to read the fine print on that but if so, that's going to help too, in a small way.
I think I will make a stylish sign for our small a/c unit that reads "this unit isn't designed to run all day long, please only operate when you are in the cottage, and never overnight". Unless we get a serious heatwave there is no need for a/c as it always drops below 20º at night, in summer. We don't have a/c in the other listings as we are cool climate, so that's one less thing to worry about. Winter is our bigger concern. We made it through ok this one, I can only 🙏🏻 that by winter 2023 these issues are behind us, but I doubt it.
Somehow, guests understand this issue in the context of their own home, but not when they are paying to stay elsewhere, so the only real solution you have is: put your prices up.