Sick of my power rates going up and not having great options to choose from I searched and found this new idea. I have not heard of this in the Energy space before so interested to hear if anyone has any experience with this or any views on it.
It is member-owned power company called Power Club. They say they are a not for profit company thinking outside the square, giving members access to wholesale prices with bill smoothing technology. You pay a yearly fee and a deposit called a Powerbank. Your Powerbank is like a reserve fund, set aside to cover the ups and downs of wholesale energy prices so you can pay a fixed rate per kWh. When wholesale prices go up, your Powerbank covers the difference, and when prices fall, the money you save tops your Powerbank back up.
I cant explain it all here but on principle it sounds great. Has anyone heard of them or are currently a member?
Welcome @Suziq.
Great question. I haven’t come across this before but share an interest in any experience from the community.
Canstar has one of their typical reviews (eg essentially infomercials).
At first glance that sounds like they are moving the price risk for energy supply from themselves to their customers. The obvious question is what happens if the prices stay high, and your ‘powerbank’ is exhausted. They want a top up.
Since it is based on spot wholesale prices, the customer’s cost can be highly volatile as the Canstar overview describes. A single hot afternoon with the A/C running full on for the day when wholesale prices are peaking might be a litmus test for whether it suits any individual customer. A few days like that in a year and ‘replenishing’ during low wholesale cost periods could be challenging.
My initial response is it could make sense for those who may be more toward the obsessive compulsive type in order to manage it. For the rest it is a risk that might or might not work out depending on one’s power use.
Really helpful answer. Thank you! It definitely is perfect for someone who watches VERY closely their power usage and who understands the highs and lows of the spot market. That is not me and I would have received a terrible shock. I will look into this further. Again, thank you for taking the time to answer.
My brother uses Amber, which sounds like a similar arrangement, but I don’t think they require the deposit (powerbank).
He is exposed to wholesale pricing, but does watch his usage carefully, and with a reasonably sized PV system is saving quite a bit of money.
Without a PV system I doubt exposing yourself to wholesale pricing is a good idea.
I live in SA and used Powerclub for 12 months. My bills were at least 20% more than with Origin and fluctuated wildly. They were clearly a start up and customer service was poor. They continued to invoice me after I changed to another retailer and I ended up contacting the Power Ombudsman to have this refunded.
