“Death by a thousand cuts”. That’s how Merrick Morley described the costs of buying into a high-density, inner-city housing dream. As a young urban professional, doing a PhD in architecture and planning, Morley is the ideal candidate for the much-lauded apartment life.

Merrick Morley bought an apartment with many defects and high strata fees, along with bills from the embedded network. Credit: Simon Schluter

However, he confessed that apartment life is “full of unexpected displeasures”. Costs from high strata fees, building defects and in particular, bills from the “embedded network”. Spruiked in the marketing as “green power”, the network produces no savings, with Morley concluding that the “rooftop solar panels aren’t pulling their irradiated weight”.

Having recently published research on “embedded networks”, Morley’s experience sounded depressingly familiar to me. Embedded networks are promoted as environmental and financial solutions for high-density housing: green energy is bulk purchased and/or generated on site, and hot water produced with efficient heat pumps. Those savings should be enjoyed by the owners and tenants who make bulk purchase and on-site generation possible.

However, third party companies – embedded network operators (ENOs) – are taking these savings as their........

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