Following on from the Solar queries, we have a solar system of 15 panels and since having them our electricity bill is generally less that $200. This is an almost 100 year old property with three bedrooms (one of which has become our pantry). We have both Gas (through AGL) and Electricity (through Energy Australia). Residents are two elderly adults and two largish dogs. I realise that we’ve just come out of winter but we do tend to put on extra layers than the heater especially during the day. We both spend a lot of time on our computers approximately 14-18 hours per day.
The last two Accounts we have received (and paid for) from AGL were $366.15 (April to July) then the prices went up and from July to October was $426.81 - they do say that both were actual meter reads. We have an instant hot water system and being older do not stand under the hot for very long; we have gas for cooking (cook top and oven with griller) and two gas heaters in different rooms.
Is there anyone who can advise what I can do to try and ascertain why our gas bills are so large - we can cope with the electricity but the gas is just going up and up!
Try checking you bills and see if the amount of gas used for the same time last year is similar. If it is the same then it it just the price of gas going up. If the amount used is much more and you cannot think of anywhere that you are using more then you could have a leak.
You can check this yourself quite safely. Pick a time when you are not going to use any gas, preferably several hours or more. Read the gas meter at the start and (remembering not to use the hot water or anything else) read it again (say) 5 hours later. If there is any difference get a plumber.
Great advice. And, at the same time, compare the supply charge pricing - there’s a
very good chance that it will be going up steathily (with both of your energy suppliers) - it is something end users can’t control, despite the care taken with consumption…
A rough guide.
For a household of 2 adults, instantaneous gas HW (Bosch) and gas oven, grill, stove top (Westinghouse) consumption is around 1200-1500 MJ per quarter. We only know this because we don’t use gas for heating where we live in SE QLD. Consumption from your summer gas bills will be a good guide to your use for HW and cooking.
The difference between your summer and winter consumption will be mostly due to in home heating.
Natural Gas prices, for AGL jumped around 20% on 01 Aug. There was also a price rise earlier in the year.
Gas prices can vary substantially depending on where you are and differences due to tiered tariffs. You may get better or worse value where you are. Based on AGL’s current Brisbane pricing on one of their offers (approx 0.048 c/MJ) NG delivers approx 21MJ for $1.00 or approx 5kW in common electrical measure. This is before the relative efficiencies of use of that energy are taken into account.
Choice has a comparison of gas vs electric oil column vs reverse cycle air conditioning for heating.
Whether it is practical or economical to change from gas to the more efficient RC Air-cons. In your instance @Janetb it looks like you are spending an average of $3 per day on NG for heating when required. There is a substantial investment required in a more efficient alternative such as RC AC. Approx $1700 each installed for our smaller room systems and $2600 each for the kW system, 4 years ago.
Solar PV can assist to reduce household electricity consumption, however for winter heating it is of less benefit than in summer for cooling. It’s worth considering too that electricity tariffs are progressing to be more reflective of the cost of delivering peak demand. For the more southern parts of Australia demand is greatest on winter evenings when solar PV is of limited to nil output. There is substantial uncertainty in the future pricing of residential gas and electricity supply. This makes any direct cost comparison more difficult.
I suggest you use the choice, partnered comparison service called Billhero.com.au. In summary, they compare your existing gas and electric plans with those available in the market. Savings are reported in annualised terms e.g. a saving of $100 on a quarterly bill equates to $400 per annum. In the two years, I have been using the service to save me over $1000.
This is a bit OT, but to give you some idea of how excessive your gas is compared to using electricity for heating.
I only have 3.24kW of solar panels, use 45kg bottled LPG for instantaneous Rinnai 16 hot water and cooking. I cook and bake a lot. Have a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries 5.7kW console inverter split system in the lounge/dining room/kitchen open plan area. House is well insulated as seven years old and put in maximum insulation, closed top pelmets, aluminium lined curtains. Don’t heat overnight and house remains at lowest temperature at 9.5C inside at -12C+. Some days in winter the inverter split system will go all day from 6:30am to 10:00pm or later - thankfully we are a high Sunshine region.
45kg bottled LPG currently (paid in Dec) is $136.00 and $20.00 annual rental. Every morning even in summer the inverter split system is on heating from 6:30am’ish to around 9:00am. If the living area is under 23C, the console inverter split system unit is on. Seldom in the evenings in summer, but yes, occassionally. As in cooling air-conditioning, perhaps five to ten times in summer when it gets over 26C - not used for long.
45kg LPG cylinder lasts on average 22 weeks. I do like a fairly long shower, and wash my hands with hot water at 44C - and a bit OCDC over clean hands.
Currently LPG over a month with rental included for two 45kg cylinders is $17.32 month.
Electricity on average is $20.00 month. Worst electricity account for one month was $60.00 because of 2022 been the wettest year on record in winter. We are a summer rainfall area. Lowest electricity account $8.40. This is taking into account the time I am away travelling.
Basically $40.00 a month for my energy requirements.
In part defence if businesses had to pay full fare would they stay in business, or would their prices be out of reach to many customers? It is about value systems and macro-economics as well as fairness. Whether our energy pricing system is fair remains arguable. Taxes? Another issue of contention.
We replaced our gas heating system with reverse-cycle aircon a couple of years ago, and the only gas appliance we now have is instantaneous hot water. We don’t use much gas on that.
About half of each bill is the supply fee.
And of course, as gas usage reduces, the supply fee will increase, because supply costs are being spread across a shrinking pool of customers.
One wonders if bottled gas might end up being cheaper for those who use very little gas.
We Victorians have compare.energy.vic.gov.au. It does a pretty good comparison of both gas and electricity based on inputting billing information for the former, and automatically downloading data from the grid operator (or manually uploading a data file or just inputting data) for the latter. The ‘estimate’ has been pretty close to my actual usage.
FWIW it rarely has been AGL and I would not do business with AGL because of prior experience with their ‘customer service’ and systems.
I’ve been considering that. Don’t use gas for cooking or heating, and have a front loader washing machine which only has a cold water inlet, and my mini dishwasher also heats its own water too. So long showers, and occasional washing up in the sink is about all I use it for. I’ll have to do a comparison…
When doing your research also note that gas burners for LPG are different than for NG. Minimally different jets and in some cases different burners so it is not just hooking up a pipe.
Yes, the cost comparison would have to include converting the existing gas appliances, if it’s possible, or replacing if not. Not something to consider for a short-term stopgap before going fully electric.
Possibly. I’d quote our SE Qld figures, but know they are not necessarily the same for NSW etc. Looking to our NG connected home in Brisbane which is low use LPG would save us 40-50% if we converted. Being part of a Strata not so easy to do. At best a $200pa saving vs the cost of conversion. One of the family converted some time past in Brisbane (family home) and was pleased with the result.
LPG conversion kits are available for the more common brands and models of storage and instantaneous gas HWS. There is a cost (gas fitter/plumber) to install the LPG bottle connection including pressure reducer and C/O valve, precast concrete base and safety chains. Finding a suitable and safe outdoor location can be a problem for smaller properties. Approx 2 hrs work for 2 last time we had a similar job done outside Brisbane.
Before considering more seriously it may pay to clarify if the gas network operator for your area will accept your request to disconnect without added charges. The gas fitter doing the LPG will need to cap the NG gas after the meter. To also confirm (per your bill) you are on a reticulated NG supply. Relevant to some parts of Australia and some estate/strata developments which alternately use reticulated LPG.
The cost of running a Heat Pump storage HWS looking to previous posts and Choice guides lower than either gas option. For those in Vic with past Govt subsidies a minimal cost to convert from gas. Qld, NSW etc not so generous.
Sumo my gas provider wrote recently advising new prices from Aug 1st. I calculated 20% increase. The same letter said I could be on another tariff and save $1,800pa, yes that amount. Only contact is by phone and after waiting 25 min to get through, they said their letter about a better tariff is wrong, I am on the best. They wrote another letter saying I am on the best but gave new prices from August 1st. This time the prices will be 35% higher. First of all what crappy systems they have and then how can they be allowed to put up prices so much in 1 go?
Your post has been moved into a discussion that covers some of the area of domestic gas price rises.
There are a number of topics about why domestic gas may be so expensive. Some of the reasoning is that we have such large exports and in most States and Territories there is no domestic gas reservation schemes, so that we are at the mercy of overseas interests and international pricing when it comes to our residential gas prices.
In your case of your supplier having such a large increase, I can’t answer why it has occurred. It may be a rise that is occurring for all suppliers, and one that hasn’t been raised here yet for those like Origin or AGL. Perhaps some others can find reasons and have examples of why the price has risen so much and any other suppliers price increases.
Have you looked at the cost for other suppliers to compare the cost? Are you only able to use Sumo? Is it LPG or NG supply?
I have been with Globird for gas. They wrote from 1 Aug my prices will increase 16% on their per annum estimation, on their ‘best plan’.
My personal spread sheet confirmed it +/- a bit. In response I visited compare.energy.vic.gov.au and from the next meter read when transfers happen, will be with CovaU.
CovaU prices last changed 25 June but could change again at any time, but for now it will [only] be a 3% increase.
It is worth working out the likely financial impact. Gas bills are broken down into usage (gas usage or ‘tariff’) and daily supply charges. The supply charge is a fixed daily fee for providing a gas connection and for metering,. The usage charge is based on the amount of gas consumed (consumption in MJ).
It is assumed the substantial ‘tariff’ price increase is for the usage component of your bill. Did the daily supply charge change as well?
Using past bills and the new usage and supply charges, one can estimate the financial impacts of the new charges.
This is very poor from a business if they made an error in the first notification and then subsequently tired to correct it in a second notification. A good business would have honoured the rates in the first notification for the next pricing period.
Thanks for your post - it confirms what I suspected, that several (many? most?) gas suppliers are putting prices up on August 1.
I received notification from Powershop that their gas (and electricity) prices are rising on the same date. I plan to do a comparison of providers on (or very soon after) August 1 to see if I can find better deals. I haven’t wanted to do it before as I suspected I might swap only to find the new provider would announce an increase shortly thereafter.
We use hardly any gas and most of our bill is the daily supply charge, so I’ll be looking at that as more important than the usage rates.
We were played. Prior to switching the compare.energy document showed the plan was released on 25 June that should have provided some comfort. Nope, CovaU issued a significant increase from 1 Aug. Rang on the 10th business day of cooling off to cancel the change. I also sent a complaint to compare.energy that such bait and switches are allowed. As background the August increase is CovaU’s 3rd change for 2025.
All while the multinationals party banking their $$$$ exporting.
