Getting a better Energy deal - WHAT A JOKE!

[david.elliott]

We have a few options for gas but its much of a muchness between the providers[/QUOTE]

We're on bottled gas, and then it's only used for the gas cooktop...so a bottle probably every 18 months ish...

While SWMBO is "shopping" I entertain myself by being nabbed by the Kleenheat teams that are there... let them go all through the story, nodding and making eye contact as appropriate, and stringing it out for as long as I can. You can't ask questions though...as that would be a give away...

Then when they get to the "close" I ask, "Will this also apply if I'm on bottled gas?"

Priceless...! You'd have thought considering the area we're in a Q about bottles would be scripted for these kids...

[Bohdan]

The ideal is not to feed in anything but that ain't gonna happen as supply and demand within the house goes up and down.

If you have an off peak electric hot water system look at installing a diverter which will send any excess power to your hot water system rather than into the grid. The off peak will then only be used to top up the hot water if required.

In my case I have the off peak turned off for 6 months of every year. I also use the excess power to boost my hydronic heating in winter.

[FenceFurniture]

You'll probably need extra panels when you buy an electric car.

[rrich]

Here in Huntington Beach we're at a latitude of about 34°, North. The last I heard the sunshine factor was estimated at 79%.

So I was looking at solar for the rooftop. The house and garage is almost 210 Square Meters. The slope of the roof is close to 40°.

Solar City (Now owned by Tesla?) is offering a glass shingle that looks like black slate and would be a reasonable fit for the neighborhood. There are two types of these glass shingles, generating and non. The prices are reported to be very similar.

Using their calculator, and without a 'Power Wall' the cost would be over $56,000. I'm not exactly sure what the total generating capacity but I've been told very close to 12 KW. A typical home installation is usually 3 KW or so. That works out to about 20 years of selling the KW to the local power company to break even. I'm 75 YO and when paid off I'll be 95. My electric bills are typically less than $80 during the non-air conditioning months and might go as high $200 during the 3½ months the A/C is running.

Yeah I thought about it but it isn't a wise investment. And, unlike some areas of Europe, the power company will buy the excess generated at wholesale rates or $0.06 per KW.

[FenceFurniture]

My electric bills are typically less than $80 during the non-air conditioning months and might go as high $200 during the 3½ months the A/C is running.

Yeah I thought about it but it isn't a wise investment. And, unlike some areas of Europe, the power company will buy the excess generated at wholesale rates or $0.06 per KW.

If that's $200 per 3 months then it's cheap as chips compared to here.

What do you pay per kW in peak times? I'm paying 21.4c pkW after discounts, so you must be paying significantly less than that. Furthermore a bill of $80 in the non-AC months is crazy good (again, if it's for a quarter). We pay ~$1 a day just for the supply charge - without any usage whatsoever........that's $91 per quarter before we plug in.

[Chris Parks]

If you have an off peak electric hot water system look at installing a diverter which will send any excess power to your hot water system rather than into the grid. The off peak will then only be used to top up the hot water if required.

In my case I have the off peak turned off for 6 months of every year. I also use the excess power to boost my hydronic heating in winter.

Can you link to the one you have Bohdan as the one I looked at was a $1000 and the savings do not add up.

[Chris Parks]

You'll probably need extra panels when you buy an electric car.

That will be the child's problem as much as I would like it to be mine, I would have an electric car in a heart beat but the wallet says no go. A Tesla P100D sounds quick enough to me.

[Chris Parks]

I have a radical idea for home generated solar but the energy companies won't like it or perhaps they will. I should be able to buy the right to use the network like we have registration on cars, then I should be able to negotiate with someone to buy my excess power that is fed into the grid which I think would be a win for everyone. I bet the energy prices come down then!!

[Bohdan]

Can you link to the one you have Bohdan as the one I looked at was a $1000 and the savings do not add up.

The one that I have can only divert 2.5Kw at a time and in the time that I have had it (about 4 years) it has diverted ~$500 worth of electricity each year (I have a 4.3Kw system).

If you can get one that diverts a larger amount off a larger system I think that the payback would be even quicker.

This is the unit that I have and it cost about $1000 4 years ago but it appears that they are no longer in business.
Their replacement from the people that I got mine from is now the Sunmate.

[Chris Parks]

Thanks Bohdan, I will look into.

[Bushmiller]

Interesting discussion. Interesting in that the rate of under 22c/KWH that Brett has negotiated (at considerable time and effort) is significantly less than the cost of electricity going back a few years. And yet there is much hype about the escalating cost of electricity.

It is also interesting that these retailers of electricity have so much wiggle room to be able to offer these discounts. It has long been my contention that the retailers and the wholesalers for that matter were creaming the money in at the expense of the general public. The sad part of the wholesalers was that they were not maintaining their systems to a satisfactory level or upgrading the systems in anticipation of new technologies, such as solar (rooftop). Now they cry poor.

Also interesting that the government in particular is so quick to decry the profit that the power generators are making. It doesn't really matter what business you are talking about, but if there is not something in it for everybody it's going to go pear shaped. Over the last fifteen years profit in the power generation market has been made for three years in the example I am talking about (without going into too much details as that starts to breach confidentiality) and two of those years have been 2015 and 2016 (probably 2017 as well). During those times of loss the generators endured, although I don't know how. They were part of the competitive market which includes all Eastern states, including Tasmania. This is the same market with the same rules for all these years.

We should also note that the competitive market for electricity is the market that the government put in place. Their rules.

During all those years of financial loss the government did not step up and say "you poor blokes," but as soon as profits are made the attitude is that "we can't have this." Like I said, everybody has a right to run a viable business. There have been claims of huge costs of electricity at the generation end. This is true: It lasts ordinarily for about five minutes and occurs only occasionally. I don't think it has happened in the last six months, but in the previous six months it happened on multiple occasions. I suppose it never suits the people who are brandishing these figures to add that sometimes the cost of electricity at our end goes minus. The generators have to pay to stay online! Again this doesn't last for long, but if we feel it necessary to mention the high price surely we should be mentioning the low price too. Otherwise we are cherry picking to suit our agenda.

Currently, and this is just my take on the figures, the average wholesale cost of electricity would be around 8-9c/KWH. It depends which state you live in (I don't mean inebriated or sober ). South Australia is the most expensive (and always has been) while Queensland is the cheapest (and always has been.)

So to return to the retail price, I would suggest that a trippling of the cost by the time it reaches your house is not unreasonable. Although I am not comparing apples with apples, compare it to the cost of beef. The farmer get $3-$4/Kg, but we pay upwards of $20/Kg in the shop ($10 for mince, $30+ for filet steak). That's a five times increase.

Just to make a last comment, in the cities the retail electricity market is going the way of the telecommunication companies. It is not an option if you live in the sticks. It seems that in comparing products you are always comparing apples with oranges.

Regards
Paul

Regards
Pau

[rrich]

If that's $200 per 3 months then it's cheap as chips compared to here.

What do you pay per kW in peak times? I'm paying 21.4c pkW

It is a monthly bill. We have a tiered system with the current top tier 26 cents per KWh.

So during the summer $200 might be for one month and $160-$180 for the other two months. They are trying to force a time of day billing system on us. What they do is to raise the normal rates so that the TOD rates look cheap. Which of course they're not. (Have you ever heard of a company trying to save YOU money at the expense of their bottom line?) And we're not even getting kissed.

[FenceFurniture]

... the rate of under 22c/KWH that Brett has negotiated (at considerable time and effort) is significantly less than the cost of electricity going back a few years. And yet there is much hype about the escalating cost of electricity.

That figure of <22c includes GST, to be clear. There was a major price increase (~25% depending on your peak/off-peak split) on July 1 this year, and this was what kick started me into action.

However, the peak price didn't rise all that much. The following figures are for AGL, and without GST and without discounts (given that they vary WILDLY even within the same retailer )
Before July 1
Peak 24.64c pkWh
Controlled Load 1 (aka Off Peak) 7.34c pkWh
Combined supply charge 83.59c per day
After July 1
Peak 29c pkWh which is an increase of 17.7%
Controlled Load 1 (aka Off Peak) 12c pkWh which is a whopping increase of 63.5%
Combined supply charge 90c per day which is a modest increase of 7.67%

Now I have no doubt that the retailers will have some bullsh excuse as to why off-peak went up so dramatically in comparison to peak, but I would be deeply suspicious that it is so they can say that peak prices haven't risen all that much and off-peak prices are still low in comparison to peak. Whichever way it is sliced, our usage here ranges about 60/40 to 50/50 for P/OP so the overall increase was huge.

Anyway, to address your point there Paul, the only reason my new rate is less than it has been for the last ? years is because I was only getting a 6% discount when there was apparently much more on offer, unbeknown to me. If I had been previously getting say the 25% that AGL immediately offered me when I first made contact in August then my Peak rate would have been 20.33c pkWh inc GST prior to July 1. In other words only a little less than my new current rate with Origin.

[FenceFurniture]

It is also interesting that these retailers of electricity have so much wiggle room to be able to offer these discounts. It has long been my contention that the retailers and the wholesalers for that matter were creaming the money in at the expense of the general public.

OF COURSE THEY ARE! BASTARDS! My 94yo mother would have no hope of negotiating a better deal with these mongrels. Firstly she is not an internet person. Secondly it is extraordinarily complex to work it all out (more on this below) and I believe that this could well be deliberate collusion purely for the sake of obfuscation.

I don't know when these larger discounts started coming into play but it has obviously been for a while. This is the part that REALLY irks me. They should be forced to offer everyone the same rates because if that does not happen it just means that I'm getting a better rate than you at your expense. You are unknowingly subsidising me and that is unAustralian, ESPECIALLY given that the most likely people to be on the high rates are those who can least afford it (like my pensioner mother).

Furthermore, it is not like I hadn't had recent verbal communication with AGL before July - in other words they had an opportunity then to offer me a better deal, but kept quiet. Earlier this year (and this just shows the level of mongrel they are) my gas bill was still about $50 in credit after it was issued (because of my advance payments). However, my elec bill still needed about $20 or something to be paid, so the net result is that AGL still have $30 of my money in credit. I forgot about paying the elec and was slugged with a $12.50 late fee on the next bill. Those that know me will understand that I SAW RED.

So I ring them up and the idiot tries to convince me that because they are two different accounts there is nothing that can be done. I said "So I bought a kg of apples from you one day, and overpaid you for them, and the next day I bought a kilo of oranges, and underpaid you for them, but still had overall credit with you, and you think you can justify charging me a late fee for the oranges? You must be bloody joking! Put me through to your supervisor, NOW!" Actually, now that I write that story, that might have been my previous contact with Goldfish personality "Cam", but whoever it was, they begrudgingly agreed to wipe off the $12.50 late fee.

More self-sabotage.

[FenceFurniture]

It seems that in comparing products you are always comparing apples with oranges.

Grrrrrr! Another thing that makes my blood boil. If you don't have my reasonably sophisticated spreadsheet at your disposal then you are completely buggered for comparing prices in different scenarios - and I'd not be surprised if I'm the only person anal enough to create such a spreadsheet. There are some online tools, such as https://www.energymadeeasy.gov.au/ which is actually pretty good if you can handle inputting your data a million times. It is not completely accurate, but not too bad.

I have checked energy prices on perhaps 12-15 different companies. They all have different thresholds and different rates for each threshold. So looking at gas, for example, Retailer A may have
up to 20 Megajoules (MJ) per day is 36.5c per
the next 20MJ pd is 34c and so on.

Retailer B may have
a single flat rate across the board (AGL)

So that makes it impossible to compare without a complex calculation (especially as you have to do it over the four seasons of the year).

The next hurdle they throw at us is the discounts. Some discount the usage and the daily supply, but most just discount the usage. You can bet that discount of both means a higher rate to start with, and a higher discount means a higher rate to start with, but it might just be one of the middle rates buried in there so we can't really see it.

Then they have differing contract times, some with breakout penalties, some without. This "contract" is also nothing but a joke. They can still change the prices twice per year without consulting us, and if we don't like the new rates and want to go elsewhere we might have to pay them an exit fee! How the hell is that a contract? It's obscene is what it is. It is a contract that is only in favour of the retailer. All they guarantee the consumer is the discount percentage. THEY CAN PUT THE RATES UP TO WHATEVER THEY LIKE, AS SOON AS THEY LIKE! That of course makes a mockery of the discount.

The only positive thing I can say for AGL there is that at least they have one rate for the Gas MJ usage, and one rate for the Peak kWh usage. They are the only company I have seen that is doing that - they may be another that I have not seen.

Overall however, I would have to say that none of the retailers present an easy to understand, straightforward and completely honest plan. At the end of the day, they need to make a certain margin on the wholesale price to survive. I can't imagine that the margin varies all that much. Some of them, like Dodo, send their call centres to the Philipines. Dodo actually happen to be the cheapest for gas and elec (for the Blue Mntns anyway) but saving the extra little bit is not worthwhile IMO because if I have cause to ring the call centre I will have extraordinary difficulty in understanding what they are saying. Just the way it is. "Sorry, would you mind separating your lips when you speak?"