Edit: New readers to the topic can join it as of February 2023 by clicking here.
Prices are set to increase to the tune of $400 a year 
These are the charges for my area (SE Qld) that Origin have advised me of:
"Hello Graham.,
Electricity prices are changing  hereÂs how this affects you
Electricity prices for consumers and businesses are going up on 1 July 2017. WeÂve detailed these charges on the next page. So you can see whatÂs changed - weÂve listed what you pay now compared to the new charges. WeÂll also include this information on your first bill after 1 July.
Why are prices increasing now?
The price for the electricity that we buy on your behalf has increased.
The network (the power lines and poles that deliver energy to your home or business) charges are lower this year, and the Queensland government has reduced these even further, but these reductions donÂt fully offset the higher electricity generation prices.
This means there is still an increase to the retail price of electricity  which youÂll see on your
electricity bills.
You can still reduce your energy bills
Given the increase, nowÂs the time to review your overall energy usage. To help you, weÂve pulled together a list of useful energy saving tips and ÂFrequently Asked Questions which youÂll find on our website at Originenergy.com.au/qldpricechange
Want to chat about the changes?
If youÂd like to speak to someone about these changes, or any aspect of your energy supply, give us a call on 13 24 61. WeÂre here to help from 7 am to 9 pm weekdays, and 9 am to 5 pm Saturdays."
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I am always so impressed by âtips to save energyâ delivered as sage advice such as âYou can still reduce your energy billsâ.
Translated into everyday speak it is more like âWe are raising prices because we can and because government has abdicated long term energy policy to the whims of private enterprise and their own energy suppliers top profit export dollars. But you can mitigate your personal hit by doing what you have probably been doing for years since privatisation started only harder.â
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There is now (as of 5th July) a way around these price rises, sonnenFlat battery where you pay a fixed rate per month that covers all your electricity use up to a certain limit depending on your PV array and battery size. It covers the fixed daily charges as well, and I know that the fixed daily charges around my part of NSW are higher than what is being charged for some of the the sonnenFlat system sizes.
The company I work for (I maintain their community discussion forum, not involved in sales) has some info about it here:
Of course you have to buy the battery, plus PV panels if you donât have them already, but I donât know what the cost might be.
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I recently changed from Click Energy. Their prices increased by around 40%.
I had selected Click from a recommendation of the 50Up Club. There are two points I want to share:
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When I did some research on their website, I eventually found (it wasnât easy) their various deals. I had been on a 22% discount but 27% was available. I asked why my supposedly special deal wasnât so special after all and was immediately put on the higher discount
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When I tried to communicate with 50Up Club about the non special deal, the response came from âOne big switchâ, not 50Up. Seems he club is just a way of getting people to aligned suppliers.
Also, I have been caught in the past changing suppliers. In NSW at least, it seems that if you donât change 30 days before your next meter read, you may be caught waiting another read before the change takes place. That might be three months and you may not receive any discount for this period as youâre âout of contractâ.
Good luck
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Hi everyone,
Have you ever received a big energy bill that has caught you by surprise? Known as bill shock, it can easily affect anyone, even if youâre cautious with your power use and energy provider.
Weâd like to hear from you about bill shock, especially if:
- You have experienced energy bill shock while working from home
- You have solar and have avoided bill shock while working from home
Please feel free to send me a DM if youâd prefer.
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We did when the highest summer quarter bill of around $1,200 arrived at our previous home around a decade ago.
Our elder daughter and kids had stayed with us and managed to use 93kwh in a single day.
I immediately started reading the meter daily to keep tabs on our usage and replaced all incandescent light bulbs with CCFL bulbs.
When the piece-of-junk Rheem electric hot water system failed as it was designed to do, we replaced it with a Saxon heat pump and cut water heating usage by 80% and costs by 70%.
When the piece-of-junk Kleenmaid Amana fridge failed. we replaced it with an LG 2 door icemaker fridge wfhich was vastly more efficient.
It was still a very hot house with sisilation under the roofing iron but no ceiling batts and no rotary ventilators and on the leeward side of the hill that blocked the prevailing brezes and would still use around 22kwh daily when we were away on holidays in summer.
Our current home is very cool with double insulation, 2 rotary ventilators, all LED light bulbs, solar hot water and inverter air conditioners, and even with the swimming pool. it only used around 22kwh when we are home in summer with everything running.
Now that we have our solar and battery system, the only one that gets bill shock is Ergon as they now receive next to nothing.
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We have a rural shed on a separate meter and minimal power usage (charge a battery, run a bar fridge, spin the drill once a month). Ergon offered us $120pa to go to monthly direct debit/ emailed bill and gave us a $500 credit (some sort of dividend as the Qld Govt owns Ergon). This put us in credit to about 2 times our annual bill. Our monthly payment has reduced several times, and I guess we are on the lowest amount and still building credit. I guess they didnât realise there were very low use business meters out there.
We get a rebate at the farm house (considered residential, not business) of about $200 with the same $120 for DD & email billing. We have replaced (as they died) inefficient appliances with Choice recommended and have reduced our usage. Again, our payment has reduced several times. We are now in credit for 2 years usage and building more credit every month. I just wished this happened 4 years ago when we were struggling for money.
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This is a story related by my tenants, so I cannot verify it 100%. They are a young family with Ergon getting power bills of $1,500+ per quarter. Queried it each bill and told that it was correct. I paid for the installation of a solar system and allowed them to keep the feed-in payment, expecting that at their current usage it would be nil to minimal. With some advice, they escalated it to the Ombudsman who contacted Ergon and an inspection of the house meter proved it to be malfunctioning. They are in a rural area far from an Ergon depot. I donât know if they got a refund or how much they pay now.
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Home or not, Iâve been avoiding it for nearly 30 years, off-grid solar and wind!
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While we havenât experienced this ourselves, in Tassie there have been reports of many bill shocks in the last billing cycle:
The meter owners seem to have estimated a lot of energy uses and based their bills on estimatesâŠnot factoring in a different season and also higher use from COVID-19 working from home increases. When a real meter reading was taken in the last bill cycle, the inadequacies of the previous estimates were quickly highlighted.
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The market is changing and those with solar will be relative beneficiaries.
If my charges doubled Iâll still be well ahead of my pre-solar days. Some of the possibilities re who will have the best deals might turn near 180 degrees to the companies that own generation. It looks to be a wild ride.
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It is not just Discover Energy doing doubled pricing. It appears the worst are the smaller resellers who cannot absorb any of their cost increases.
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l am waiting to see if my provider, Red Energy, raises its pricesâŠits power is sourced from Snowy mountains hydro so will be curious how they justify any possible rises
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It doesnât matter the source of the generation. If you are connected to the main grid (living in QLD, NSW, VIC, SA or TAS), there will be an increase in electricity charges. As the network is interconnected (states and generation), what happens with one type of generator impacts on all prices.
An easy way to explain it is if the pool or wholesale price of electricity increases, which it has, generation (to the uncontestable market which is almost all domestic consumers) to the market will be paid the pool price for the electricity. This occurs irrespective of whether it is renewable to non-renewable generation. This ABC article has tried to explain it for the Tasmanian situation, which generation almost all the time is through renewables.
It is a bit like conventional farmed wheat world price increases, so does organically grown wheat. The two markets are intertwined and what happens in one, impacts on the other.
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Prices are not segregated by source. It is complex but you can have the situation where if the price of gas goes up the price of all goes up.
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Thanks for the repliesâŠl may to think about expanding my solar set up
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The house we bought already had solar (in Qld) so that meant unlike the previous owners, we never got the same benefit on price for solar produced as it doesnât transfer. I try to use my power through the day where I can. We upgraded our solar a couple of years back to a better system and while we make some savings, I also ensure thereâs a regular monthly direct debit into our power bills. Because we live rurally, we also only have one choice of provider and technically itâs owner is the state government so that weâre not disadvantaged a great deal by where we live.
Apart from the oven running on occasions in the evening (not a common thing) we try to run things like the dryer and washing machine through the day. The only time we manage to get in Credit with our solar is at the end of summer or some time in autumn and that credit is usually chewed up in winter anyway. Of course with the wet weather of late, our âsunnyâ days have been very limited. Weâve had one sunny day (today) this week and more rain is expected tomorrow. Still happy we have solar, would hate to think what our bills would be like without the solar.
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Two views of the problem that say much the same thing.
4 reasons our gas and electricity prices are suddenly sky-high
and
Note that the growth of sustainable energy is not mentioned - quite the contrary.
Will the new PM upset the gas industry and use his powers to hold back some gas from export for domestic use? We wait with bated breath.
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Last month I switched to Diamond Energy after reading the choice review saying âDiamond Energy provides power to 13,000 customers across Australia, generating electricity solely from renewable sources. The company claims to provide more sustainable power than their competitors, at an affordable price.â
I understand that coal and gas prices are increasing due to the war in Ukraine and our dysfunctional energy market here in Aus.
However what I donât understand is why those factors would cause green energy prices to jump by over 25% from July 1. I mean, itâs not like Putin is throwing shade over Australian solar farms.
I have an email from them saying the all day rate is jumpnig from 23c/kWh to 28.33c/kWh. Thatâs a nearly 25% increase. Talk about post purchase dissonance!
Anyone know whatâs going on there?
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