Until a few days ago I was with PowerShop, but they’ve just been bought by Shell, so I looked around for another ethical provider and settled on Energy Locals. I’m paying for 50% green supply.
I was quite happy with PowerShop, and I’m angry with Shell for another bout of greenwashing.
I was with PowerShop until last week. They’ve been taken over by Shell, so I’ve gone elsewhere. PowerShop prices are low.
Hi Jarni, I live in Tasmania and since January 2018 have used Aurora Energy as my provider. Even though we are 100% renewable, electricity prices have not come down much, even when Aurora Energy finally had a competitor in 1st Energy in February 2019. They both charge the same price, however, 1st Energy offer a 5% discount for paying bill on time. There was only a small price reduction when the Granville Harbour Wind Farm came online late 2020. I had expected a noticeable price reduction with our bills considering we are 100% renewable.
Yes, Tassie is nearly 100% Hydro or Wind, and a little gas. There is no incentive for lower prices in Tassie than the NEM. Unless an increase in renewables over the strait drives those costs down.
Last 12 months generation for Tasmania.
Even utilities have been ‘trained’ to charge what the market will bear, and often a bit more but not enough to foment a serious rebellion.
Our utilities regulation and pricing is somewhere between complex to understand, purposefully obfuscates how the components interact, or are opaque. Those empowered (not ‘trusted’ per se) with oversight generally argue it all ways.
Way 1: Prices of fuel has risen so prices must rise
Way 2: A margin has to be added to pay for [wind farms & solars farms & …] so prices must rise
Way 3: The infrastructure from Way 1 and Way 2 needs maintenance and updates even though there has been a reduction in fuel for Way 1 and nothing is being built in Way 2 so prices must rise.
Some countries once or still have regulatory regimes that guarantee a fixed profit margin and capitalists are willing to take it since it reflects investment certainty akin to a bank account. They have a captive customer base and can set their prices to achieve a (eg) 7% profit that they need to justify by filing their baseline costs annually. As those regulatory regimes evolved to unregulated capitalist free market services the prices have invariably gone up, and sometimes skyrocketed with no benefit to consumers, often confusing market changes difficult to impossible to ‘shop through’, but big benefits to investors and to those government who can pretend they are at arms length from that consumer issue and who also might get more tax revenue, jurisdiction dependent…
And so it goes with trying to find ‘greener’ sources where in an absolute sense the ultimate ownership might come back to a fossil fuel company, and a reality is that there is so much energy that can be produced, made up of a mix of green and fossil all going through the same distribution system, and ‘valued’ (priced) against a supply and demand for each generator.
The more who want green sourced generation the higher the prices for that will be as it becomes a scarce commodity against demand. Prices rise.
Like most residential electricity consumers in Tasmania, your pricing is regulated by the State government. The state government sets the pricing for the electricity you use.
Where differences can occur is in the retail margin applied to the prices. 1st Energy has decided to apply a discount which reduces the retail margin they make. It is their marketing strategy to get new and keep customers.
Tasmania currently has a small capacity connector to the remainder of the east coast main grid. It is a net exporter of electricity which means it doesn’t benefit significantly from pricing on the mainland.
As electricity generation in Tasmania is dominated by hydro, which is quick dispatch generation, any new renewable such as wind won’t significantly affect pricing. What happens is less hydro is used to meet shortfalls. There is no excess generation to push prices down.
Unlike the mainland where most generation currently isn’t quick dispatch sources, base generation occurs irrespective of what renewable energy generation is. This can create an environment of excess generation from renewables, which pushes pricing down.
The Tasmanian electricity industry is very different to the mainland, but in the future as electricity generation on the mainland moved more towards renewable electricity, it will become somewhat similar to Tasmania. The main difference could be storage within the system to cater for fluctuating generation and demand (to meet shortfalls) or significantly excess generation to reduce storage costs but reduce generation fluctuations.
We changed to Diamond Energy a few years ago - they were pretty much neck and neck with Powershop on the Greenpeace list. I have been very happy with their service and do pay the extra for green energy as it’s not really that much. We do have solar panels and we bought a battery last year. Before we bought the battery, we had a great feed-in tariff from them (in SEQld) but most of that was removed by Energex when we ordered the battery.
Which company did you switch to if you don’t mind me asking?
Energy Locals.
A heads up for anyone considering or using Powershop as their energy provider.
Powershop until recently has been considered a really good provider of green energy and has been Choice’s top pick. However very recently (Nov 2021) they were sold to Shell, the biggest carbon fuel polluter on the planet. Even if this is a move by Shell to green themselves the question has to be asked if by using Powershop we are providing income to a company that is still very slow of divesting itself fossil fuels.
I know I will be searching for a better option.
Welcome to the Community @langsutcliffe ,
I moved your post into this existing topic, noting @perry previously mentioned Powershop in a similar context. While my post is a bit OT about our greener energy options, yours deserves a response.
Although a few years dated, that assertion doesn’t hold to scrutiny although they are ‘up there’ near the top. While unlikely, the table may have re-ordered the top suspects since but probably not more than a place or two either way.
Do you have a reference citing Shell has risen to #1?
Shell’s future strategy might not be what its traditional investors envisaged, regardless that they are moving HQ to London.
To provide a bit of balance in relation to Shell and Powershop. Shell for the past few decades has been investing heavily in renewable energy systems, generation and services. It has also been divesting some of its fossil fuel assets as it moves towards a non-fossil fuel future. It’s board and upper management have acknowledged that they need to move away from fossil fuels and also substantially reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
The acquisition of Powershop is another business in its broad suite of investments in renewable energy systems, generation and services.
It is also worth noting that many of the renewable energy projects which are operational, are under construction or in the planning stage are sponsored by traditional fossil fuel companies, as they diversify their operations in recognition of a finite lifespan for traditional fossil fuel energies.
If one takes to the stand to leave Powershop because of Shell’s recent investment, an argument could be that one should not support many of Australia’s (or the worlds) renewable energy projects as they too have been investments of fossil fuel companies.
Yes I have definitely been giving it some thought but it is so hard to navigate the “actual” emissions of any one retailer. I was going to shift to an AGL carbon neutral account but then Greenpeace advised that AGL were, in fact, Australia’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Apparently they are off-loading their fossil fuel emissions into a separate company to confuse the issue. some guidance would certainly help sort through the bullshit.
Public sentiment seems against Powership/Shell. This article lists a few alternatives.
@phb’s points are right on. It seems the old fossil fuel companies will be damned if they don’t, but also damned if they do, including cleaner energy companies they acquire. A catch-22 since ‘big oil’ has the capital as well as many pollies in their pockets to get it done - assuming they really want to of course.
The boards must see the transition as a fait accompli and are trying to get with it while not ruining their current business. Whether that is enough fast enough is another issue but they are obviously between a rock and a hard place.
I doubt it is intended to ‘confuse the issue’. There is a time honoured tactic of companies facing business issues, often because of burdensome debt, to divest themselves of problem business units and that debt. In essence it results in one (or more) good public company and one (or more) bad public company. It gets the debt (problem) off the books so the good company can ‘march proudly into the future’ (with apologies to cinematographers and choreographers) exuding sunshine for all involved in the metamorphosis.
The consumer push back is interesting. A fossil fuel company buys a green provider and loses customers rather than gets recognised for engaging/supporting greener products. The message to the corporate world might be problematic and result in new business arrangements to obfuscate ownership rather than buying into ‘own branded’ investments. eg Shell creates a company called ‘S-Power P/L’ who then buys a Powershop type business. But would consumers react any differently once that was revealed, as it surely would be?
@phb put it well…
Is this because:
A small side-note on this discussion coming out of a recent Choice member e-newsletter, which included this line:
Switch to a better gas and electricity provider – and save on your bills without turning out the lights.
Now maybe this should just be excused as a marketing line and maybe I’ll be criticised for nit picking - but I don’t think a consumer organisation in 2021 should be encouraging unbridled energy consumption just because the price is right (or any unbridled consumption for that matter).
[Perhaps for a separate thread… but I think this also raises an interesting broader question about what it means to be pro-consumer: does it just mean fighting for the best “deal” for consumers – or does it also mean fighting for consumers in a way that might achieve the best deal for society?]
If that was the intent, I’d agree. Mostly I’d associate what Choice was saying with having to go without because something is unaffordable. Not the alternative of encouraging waste.
Of all the uses of electricity these days, assuming you have modern LED lighting, it’s a very small portion of household consumption. Only having the lights on that we need to do a task, make the home safe, lift our mood, or express good cheer is purposeful. I know several older Australian’s whose saving from not turning a light on at night or leaving one on in the hallway to toilet has led to harm when they’ve tripped and fallen.
We don’t always read things the same way.
This is a useful perspective - thanks for sharing. I agree that what you describe is much more likely to reflect Choice’s intent.
Even still - perhaps, in the context of these important issues, it’s even more important to be careful with language. Precisely because not everyone reads things in the same way!
