Some reality, at least in Victoria.
6 Likes
Finding the best plan for your usage is an even bigger problem if you are a local council, aka LGA.
We should all feel a little better about our own despair chasing the best deals. If this is what it takes for the council to get the best outcomes?
2 Likes
The Productivity Commission should review how much of our community time and resources are being consumed by our electricity purchasing system, which is meant to be benefiting our community.
If you add up all the time spent by Australians trying to work out how to get a meaningfully better deal (particularly hard for those trying to use renewable energy), then swapping, and swapping back when the deals change (the next day?), communicating with companies, the staff to manage all of this, advertising, money lost because you canāt or canāt face going through another review and change or are duped, complaints, government monitoring and guidance, etc. etc. this looks like a massive ābusy workā time and resource waster that is not useful and meaningful, and in fact intrudes on and steals our time. Is this really where we want to use our finite human and financial resources on in a post pandemic era? Arenāt there many other real needs and problems like maintaining and improving our electricity system, including its safety, environmental protection and restoration (putting lines underground would be safer and protect vegetation cut back regularly at enormous expense). Or are we going to follow along the tragic path worn down already by our hapless community?
7 Likes
I fully agree, that it is ridiculous to have to shop for a new Electricity deal all the time. At the moment the pay-on-time discount has been phased out, which will make my new deal more expensive. The official comparison website is completely useless. We have an all electric house, which means we use more electricity than a household, which heats with gas, I have tried to point this out to the Energy Regulator, who compiles the statistics, but we still get statistics on our bill, which do not compare us with all electric houses. I just looked at lots of figures and we are facing a big increase of our bills as compared to last year (our contract expires in June). We are with AGL. Life was so simple, when we had the SEC.
5 Likes
I periodically check for new deals but only on base rates. Iām not interested in discounting because that can be changed at any time. And they are always time limited. As a result I am still with Energy Australia, because in all honesty, I have not found a better deal for my situation. I wish it was still Australian.
3 Likes
They change the base rates too.
2 Likes
12 months on and I could not find anything suggesting progress in establishing business here.
3 Likes
Other than this:
Itās still Origin thoughā¦
3 Likes
Forgive me, but I thought that they jacked the price up to give you a discount for paying on time. In effect you were paying the āregularā amount if you paid on time, and an added penalty if you paid late.
1 Like
Unfortunately, as far as I can see, the price did not come down, although the discount disappeared.
2 Likes
Of course they do, but that is to be expected, and its easier to compare if you only look at base rates. I am home 99% of the time so my usage is over the entire day. I dont have peaks and shoulders (except on my bod!) so I need to be able to estimate which supplier is the most economical for me, and the only way to do that, is to compare base rates, AFAIC.
2 Likes
I still think that prices have gone up considerably. My calculations show that I will be paying more (between $89 and 300) and I am not very happy
1 Like
My electricity contract with ACTEW/AGL recently ran out, I had a 25% discount under that contract but was offered only a 20% discount for the new contract. I therefore decided to do research whether an alternative supplier would be better.
After looking at the usual online price comparison websites including the āgovernmentā site (totally useless), I decided to do it myself! I created a spreadsheet with the electricity usage from a recent statement, then calculated the cost using the online rates from Origin (two choices), ACTEW/AGL, and Red Energy. I found that the Origin āBoostā plan gave me the best saving with almost $45 rebate as I have Solar panels. (Red energy came in second, then Origin Maxi-Saver, each with a rebate; ACTEW/AGL was last with a cost).
I will not go into detail about the comparison, but I was only able to do it because I had a skill using an Excel spreadsheet and I understand electricity. My concern is that it is NOT something the average person can do, and there are many who would have no idea what to do and would be totally dependant on āadviceā from the electricity supplier. The online comparison sites I believe are not helpful and probably would only result in phone calls from a sales person offering the ābest dealā. Each retailer offers to āestimateā the cost to supply my electricity using a postcode, but that is quite spurious because no two houses have the same power usage profile, it is just an average! This process is complicated further because the various retailers regularly change their prices.
So, some simple, independent price comparison site is needed, one that does not need an engineering degree to use. It also needs to be useable by people with no computer capability, straightforward telephone advisory service!
I also have gas for heating, cooking, and hot water. I did not even bother trying to do a comparison for gas prices. The retailers use different set points for price steps and it was just to complex to bother.
7 Likes
