Getting a better Energy deal - WHAT A JOKE!

[Chris Parks]

Our last Electricity bill was $1110, the latest one is $350 which I pleasantly surprised at. It appears that when the sun shines, the solar system does its thing, very little heating or cooling is required and a new heat pump hot water system is installed you don't use many ergs from the grid.

[Tccp123]

FF, you have the patience of a saint...

[FenceFurniture]

So the yearly merry-go-round has come full circle, and my plan with Origin has now expired. As we all know, energy prices have risen substantially in recent times, so again I checked the EnergyMadeEasy site and plugged a whole bunch of figures into my spreadsheet.

This time, for my region, Amber Electricity were the best for sparks, and GloBIRD were best for gas, and over the weekend I transferred the accounts to those two. We have decided to abandon gas heating in favour of reverse cycle split aircon (2x) as much as possible, and only use gas for cooking. The forthcoming bills will give a better indication.

O'course the Origin Retention Team called me this arvo, but I couldn't talk, so we will have an "interesting" conversation tomorrow. The last 12 months of Origin Electricity has been a continuing fiasco. Apart from completely screwing it all up a year ago and costing me 50 hours of time on the phone (yes, really), they did not send a bill for 9 months! Fortunately I pay an averaged amount every fortnight so I was ahead of the eventual bill. In fact, the only reason the fabled Origin Computer eventually spat out a bill was because I asked for a refund and the puta said "FAAAARK! We can't let him have all that back" and so a bill came out.

Amber Electricity has an interesting business plan. They charge a monthly membership fee of $19 and then you only pay wholesale rates. If you are a CommBank customer you get six months free membership. So if you are a large consumer of sparks it becomes pretty attractive. They have an app for your phone so you can see what today's forecast rates are for each hour – very useful. At 17:36 I got an SMS to say rates were spiking so "turn off what you can" and an hour later another SMS to say "relax, it's over". So I looked at the app and sho'nuff the rate at 17:30 was $45 something per kW.

That's a REALLY useful service!

They have a mate's rates thing where if you refer someone to them you both get a $30 credit. (read into that whatever you like )

Pretty smooth experience so far, but it's early days yet.

[Simplicity]

So the yearly merry-go-round has come full circle, and my plan with Origin has now expired. As we all know, energy prices have risen substantially in recent times, so again I checked the EnergyMadeEasy site and plugged a whole bunch of figures into my spreadsheet.

This time, for my region, Amber Electricity were the best for sparks, and GloBIRD were best for gas, and over the weekend I transferred the accounts to those two. We have decided to abandon gas heating in favour of reverse cycle split aircon (2x) as much as possible, and only use gas for cooking. The forthcoming bills will give a better indication.

O'course the Origin Retention Team called me this arvo, but I couldn't talk, so we will have an "interesting" conversation tomorrow. The last 12 months of Origin Electricity has been a continuing fiasco. Apart from completely screwing it all up a year ago and costing me 50 hours of time on the phone (yes, really), they did not send a bill for 9 months! Fortunately I pay an averaged amount every fortnight so I was ahead of the eventual bill. In fact, the only reason the fabled Origin Computer eventually spat out a bill was because I asked for a refund and the puta said "FAAAARK! We can't let him have all that back" and so a bill came out.

Amber Electricity has an interesting business plan. They charge a monthly membership fee of $19 and then you only pay wholesale rates. If you are a CommBank customer you get six months free membership. So if you are a large consumer of sparks it becomes pretty attractive. They have an app for your phone so you can see what today's forecast rates are for each hour – very useful. At 17:36 I got an SMS to say rates were spiking so "turn off what you can" and an hour later another SMS to say "relax, it's over". So I looked at the app and sho'nuff the rate at 17:30 was $45 something per kW.

That's a REALLY useful service!

They have a mate's rates thing where if you refer someone to them you both get a $30 credit. (read into that whatever you like )

Pretty smooth experience so far, but it's early days yet.

Brett
Interesting that there Hooking up with the Commonwealth Bank, maybe I’m just moving into the over cynical view point, but then we’re talking about banks, an spark provides.
None seem too be making huge financial loses lately.
Tho from a personal perspective I have no reason too be hear .

Cheers Matt.

[Bushmiller]

Amber Electricity has an interesting business plan. They charge a monthly membership fee of $19 and then you only pay wholesale rates. If you are a CommBank customer you get six months free membership. So if you are a large consumer of sparks it becomes pretty attractive. They have an app for your phone so you can see what today's forecast rates are for each hour – very useful. At 17:36 I got an SMS to say rates were spiking so "turn off what you can" and an hour later another SMS to say "relax, it's over". So I looked at the app and sho'nuff the rate at 17:30 was $45 something per kW.

That's a REALLY useful service!

Brett

It is useful providing you notice it.

Yesterday was a good example for price spikes. In Queensland there was a wholesale spike to $14,777. In NSW it went to VOLL (value of lost load), which is the ceiling price, and made an eye watering $16,599 per MW/hr. If you happened to be thicknessing (3KW) and, of course, dust collecting (2KW) and because of the noise and your level of concentration did not notice the notification, you may have blown the expected monthly budget in one day!

In QLD it lasted for about ten minutes at that level and then reduced. I did not see what happened in NSW.

Regards
Paul

[FenceFurniture]

In Queensland there was a wholesale spike to $14,777. In NSW it went to VOLL (value of lost load), which is the ceiling price, and made an eye watering $16,599 per MW/hr. If you happened to be thicknessing (3KW) and, of course, dust collecting (2KW) and because of the noise and your level of concentration did not notice the notification, you may have blown the expected monthly budget in one day!

Yes, it's a work in progress to see how it goes. The price spike they showed at 17:30 was $45/kWh which is $45,000/MWh, so I'm not sure I understand how that works yet.

Amber is monthly billing so I should know pretty quickly how well it goes.

Origin Retention rang back again this morning. The rates they offered were slightly lower than the two retailers I chose $100/year for sparks and $6/year on gas), but as I said to her "then I only have Origin's billing incompetence to cope with". I declined their offer and said I would be in touch if it didn't pan out as I expect.

[Mr Brush]

Sounds like our experience with Red Energy. If their business model consists of happily losing customers by refusing to match lower prices, having the customer switch to another provider, then running around making better offers to get the customer back.....I'd say they have a problem.

Happy with OVO; it isn't even summer yet, and on sunny days we're already routinely making a couple of $ a day even allowing for supply charges, etc. I'm still getting used to the idea of my (prepaid) account balance going up instead of down, and they pay 3% interest on surplus finds in your account. I'm expecting at least two quarters to be in credit at this rate, and we only have a 5kW inverter on our solar.

[Bushmiller]

Yes, it's a work in progress to see how it goes. The price spike they showed at 17:30 was $45/kWh which is $45,000/MWh, so I'm not sure I understand how that works yet.

Amber is monthly billing so I should know pretty quickly how well it goes.

Yes, there is an anomaly there with the $16,599 cap and a $45 charge. It should have been $15.60. Somebody has poor mathematics skills or is telling porkies. If they are charging you the wholesale price (plus their membership fee) are they repaying you when the price is negative. For example, as I write the w/sale price is $- 56.91 meaning that they should be paying you nearly 6c for every Kw/hr.

I only have figures for yesterday in QLD, but even with the price spikes the average was $189 which translates to around 19c/Kwhr. It may have a little more in NSW as the volatility seemed slightly more extreme. The previous days averaged 3.9c and 5.2c per Kwhr in QLD. However, I would be wary of any retailer who does not have contracts in place as that may well be a very different "Wholesale price" as all the previous figures related to the spot market.

Something does not ring true with the "wholesale" price statement.

I would be interesting to know exactly how this is managed.

Regards
Paul

[FenceFurniture]

Yes, there is an anomaly there with the $16,599 cap and a $45 charge. It should have been $15.60.

Yep. Mind you, I think Amber's minimum time period is 30 minutes, rather than the 5 minute intervals that the wholesale market uses. That's probably for practical reasons, and they probably average the 6x five minute intervals.

If they are charging you the wholesale price (plus their membership fee) are they repaying you when the price is negative. For example, as I write the w/sale price is $- 56.91 meaning that they should be paying you nearly 6c for every Kw/hr.

Yes they do pay me when it's -ve.

I would be interesting to know exactly how this is managed.

You and me both! The billing cycle is monthly, so I'll just modify my spreadsheet accordingly, and I should have a pretty good idea after the first 2 months, depending on how much heating is required. We are killing the gas heating to see how it goes.

[FenceFurniture]

This was the situation a few minutes ago, and I think that confirms the 30 minute intervals they use.

Capture.jpg

[FenceFurniture]

A 30 minute average is fine by me because otherwise you'd spend your life looking at the bloody app, rather than using actual sparks!

After the horror summer of 2019-20 we put two split aircons in: one in the front room which became Lola's work and wardrobe room, and one in this room at the other end. The next three summers were back to usual and the aircons didn't get much use, but I think this summer they'll get a workout.

Another reason for killing the gas central heating is because of cats. They LOVE to lie on the vents which blows their fur up everywhere. The room heat sensor for the system is in the middle room, so if there is a cat on the vent in there the heating gets fooled into thinking it's still cool, and so keeps warming the cats guts! This will never do. Some years ago I implemented a somewhat agricultural but nonetheless effective solution to keep the vents clear.

You know what a Scarecrow is. This is my DiscomforterCat system:

IMG_20230905_132012_1.jpg


Nursie is a particularly stubborn cat. There's a vent like that near my desk and I have to put up with her rattling around trying her hardest to rearrange the can openers to a comfortable level.

[Beardy]

Sounds like our experience with Red Energy. If their business model consists of happily losing customers by refusing to match lower prices, having the customer switch to another provider, then running around making better offers to get the customer back.....I'd say they have a problem.

Happy with OVO; it isn't even summer yet, and on sunny days we're already routinely making a couple of $ a day even allowing for supply charges, etc. I'm still getting used to the idea of my (prepaid) account balance going up instead of down, and they pay 3% interest on surplus finds in your account. I'm expecting at least two quarters to be in credit at this rate, and we only have a 5kW inverter on our solar.

Are you a high power user? I am with Origin Energy and with a 10kw system that has a capped feed in of 5 I am still getting whacked with a decent bill. Last month I fed 400Kwh into the grid and used 720kwh.
Ight need to shop around

[Bushmiller]

This was the situation a few minutes ago, and I think that confirms the 30 minute intervals they use.

Capture.jpg

While I am sure the majority of consumers would be quite happy to pay only 4c per Kwhr, that is not the w/sale price. Have a look at this chart from AEMO for NSW:

AEMO | NEM data dashboard

As you can see, the price has not been positive since around 0800 this morning and is still negative at the time of posting. 4c is not a bad price, but not w/sale!!

Regards
Paul

[FenceFurniture]

Might need to shop around

EnergyMadeEasy.gov.au is the place to look. It's a bit more streamlined than it used to be.

[FenceFurniture]

This looks ok so far, given that daily usage is probably pretty much smack on the yearly average (no heating until 18:00 today):
I am flying fairly blind with electricity consumption, having deleted gas heating. I put 5000kWh per year peak use and 4300kWh per year for Controlled Load 1. That's an average of 25.5kWh per day, and my usage over the last three days is 76kWh, which indicates that, somehow, my forecasts were ridiculously accurate (for those three days anyway )

Its probably more like a split of 6800kWh + 3000kWh because my CL1 usage shouldn't actually change at all.

Based on that, my forecast usage cost for three days was $6.27 x 3 = $18.81, but the app says it was $13.73 (maybe not including GST)