We received an email recently from Choice regarding the roll out of smart meters ,raising concerns about demand charges. Apparently if you have a high energy demand for over 30 minutes in any one day the energy company will average this out over a month and assume? that you will use this amount every day.
The scenario that they used was someone using their aircon and then cooking a roast at the same time. This of course raises the average power usage when the power company decides you use that amount every day.
They charge for power in 30 minute blocks apparently.
It appears to be a way for the power companies to claw back profits in the face of more people installing solar panels…
I was wondering if there would be a way for people who have installed solar with battery storage to switch from their provider to their storage system every 20-25 minutes and back again so triggering the start of a new 30 minute billing block.
Perhaps this could reduce people’s costs. The power companies are touting smart meters as giving consumers more control but their billing practices show anything but this.
Just throwing this idea out there and I don’t really think anything will come of it but we need to push back at some of these billing practices.
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