Queensland Electricity Tariffs

Energy
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Other potential retailers won’t offer much more or less.

https://wattever.com.au/retailer-solar-feed-in-tariffs-by-state-and-territory/

For new solar grid connections, FIT, for a number of years have been based on the average market/pool electricity prices. For Queensland, they range from about $0.05 to $0.09/kW. For the full years from 2016-2021, the average was just over $0.07/kW. Ergon’s offer for FIT of $0.066 is around an industry average and it is unlikely that one would get a substantially better deal.

Notwithstanding this, if one has a relatively new PV system and is on the current variable FITs, FITs are usually a minor offset to power bills and the type of plan one choses, with a retailer, will have a greater impact on power bills.

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The tariffs are set at Government level not the company. Ergon has rates that are flat across their distribution area or perhaps better said those who are remote pay the same rate as those who live in much larger areas. Similar to our NBN system that regulates a price not based on distance but on a particular bandwidth service. Not perfect but far more perfect than a service where a supplier can set a service that only provides for a limited number of customers and provides no equity of service to the larger populace in the area.

I think a better idea is press your local State representatives to argue for a cheaper price on supply (remembering that this also includes the supply and maintenance of the grid in the distribution area). If upset with the feedin tariff then that to needs to be addressed with State representatives and the State Government. If we want to entrench inequity of supply and maintenance then hoping other suppliers will meet the demand is the way to go. I see/believe that some services need to be a Government Monopoly to maintain equity to all they serve and accountability even if it is only at the ballot box to all they represent.

Increase of retailers of supply also is a means to increase cost of supply. Every retailer needs to make a profit (except perhaps a Government one), pay for staff, pay for offices and office supplies, pay dividends; each of these add a further cost to the cost of supply and every different one adds only another similar burden. What was sold to Qld as a means to create competition in the energy market was in reality a payday for many retailers of Energy and an increased cost burden for consumers.

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Perhaps they do. It needs much more than a simple statement to demonstrate whether it’s fact. The only true comparison is not of a an individual tariff, but a comparison of the total bill for one offer verses another.

When one looks to how the tariffs are set and the operation of the NEM the 5 more eastern states have agreed to a connected future. The agreed (Federally driven?) business model considers the free enterprise cost of capital ahead of social cost or benefit, IMO. The greater cost of an electricity bill is the network portion costs (up to 50%). There is only one network hence one distributor. The costs recoveries are regulated from a national level down.

Whether the full cost efficiencies of residential solar feed in are reflected in the current retail plans and offers would be my suggested key point for any further discussion.

Note:
For Victoria the typical feed in tariff is 6.7c. a few have best offers (conditional) of 12c. Retailers can bundle higher feed in tariffs with higher consumption tariffs and or higher daily connection charges.

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An article regarding electricity price reductions.

If it is correct, all Ergon customers will get is the rough end of the pineapple, as usual.

What a surprise.

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After 25+ years of living north of the tropic and having just the one electricity option, I’m empathetic.

There has been a long standing view that regional Qld is worse off. If there is a way forward, objectively comparing the cost of identical services can tell us just how great the difference really is.

As for pineapples, we have a more than adequate supply locally. Or did I miss the reference by Nine to pineapples.

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It’s policy of Energy Qld within which Energex and Ergon operate. Effectively customers in the Energex distribution region subsidise Ergon customers. The 2020-21 Energy Qld Annual report may assist others to understand the relationships and decision making.

The following from the report introductory message suggests that factually Ergon customers have benefited from reduced costs.

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As has been suggested

My view is the consequences of past changes at Federal level encouraged the States to divest themselves of their enterprises including key services or run them as a business that must take profits. In any environment where the end point is that the consumer relies on a profit driven business, each user will come in the end to pay the full cost of their personal service. @grahroll passed comment on how that might evolve to make things worse for consumers. It’s open for discussion.

An additional resource for understanding how the distribution costs are regulated is the AER (Australian Energy Regulator). To be honest I suspect only some will make sense of how this all functions. It is simpler as a consumer to look at hard data based on bill comparisons. It’s the most common strategy for objectively finding the best deal.

Edit added note: Current Qld Competition Authority determination.

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The following booklet presents how the current cost recoveries/charges have been determined and regulated by the QCA. It is likely something most of us can follow.

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I have moved your post to this existing thread which is about Queensland Electricity Tariffs. If you have a look back through the thread you will find multiple references to Ergon and pricing.

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I’m with AGL, on their Solar Savers Online tariff. I’ve just received an email from them to say that from 3 February 2022 my current plan will be ending, and that I’ll be transferred automatically to their Super Savers plan. Now, here’s the real kicker. They say, “We estimate, based on your previous usage that you’ll pay the same* over the first 12 months after your new Super Saver plan takes effect.”
Looking at the comparison of the current and proposed rates I immediately saw that I was going from a solar feed-in tariff of 17 cents down to a miserly 5 cents/kWh. Even though the new daily charge and T11 will decrease slightly under the proposed plan I was immediately suspicious of their assertion that the bottom line would be basically the same. After all, if that were the case why would they even want to put me on a new plan?
Now, a good friend of mine who’s obsessive about such things actually monitors and spreadsheets our usage and solar generation on a daily basis, and has the figures going back to August 2020. When he applied the new tariffs to my historical data, instead of an annual cost to me of $84 the cost would have been $306.
That certainly doesn’t show “that you’ll pay the same” under the new tariff. In fact I’d be paying 3.6 times as much, and AGL, if they were being honest, would know this.
How can AGL be allowed to get away with this? Most customers would accept their statement at face value, but in fact it’s a big lie. They ought to be called out on it.
As a footnote, they also have a new Solar Savers plan which would be better value with an estimated annual cost of $199, but of course they didn’t point that out. It looks like I’ll be pulling the plug on AGL and leaving them to their dishonest ways.

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I was briefly tempted to try them again after 15 years last year. Best plan for my usage but it lasted 6 months before new numbers and I moved on. This week I received a solicitation to rejoin them - the headlined feature -

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If you cannot make clear competitive pricing and plans, try obfuscating the total costs. Campaigns such as this one must appeal to the customers who buy discounts and features more than prices/costs and are willing to pay $hundreds more p.a. for whatever is thrown in that costs much less.

Many years ago I was an AGL customer and they sent me new plan details to take up. But when I tried to take them up they refused to honour their own offer because it was only for customers having gas and electricity, not just gas. Their records did not know? IME a company to avoid. Whether it is internal incompetence or cynical marketing AGL can be one to avoid.

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Looking at Origin I’d suggest AGL may not be the only retailer with similar practices.

I’ve been looking at the options (Energex Distribution zone) as our plans expire early next year. Origin and AGL online display plans based on assumed average consumption. For their solar plans they use exactly the same consumption as a non solar household and use zero export for the comparison cost estimate. Hence their ‘Solar’ plans with the higher FIT are shown as costing more annually than the lower cost basic plans with 3c or 5c FIT. The alternative is to input your actual address and or upload billing details for a more reliable estimate? I’m sceptical this gives the best deal. The best deal IMO can only be found by doing the estimates yourself using data from your bill and solar PV system.

Irrespective of what I found with on line offers last year, I discovered even better offers by phoning around the retailers. This also turned out to be true for the two retailers we had accounts with at the time.

I agree it should be easy to get the best deal and any offers or estimates provided by a retailer should pass a ‘in the best interests or lowest total cost offer test for the customer’.

It’s not how it is, despite what the ACCC has supposedly done to improve transparency.

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The Victoria government energy compare site with uploaded data as supplied by the grid operator has been within a few dollars of my own spreadsheets, solar and all.

Just curious about how much time you spent on hold to do that, and how much better a deal it could deliver as compared to the best offer they have as filed with government regulators (considering states are not all the same nor equal in how they do it).

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Is it possible for you to take a photo of the whole of the letter including any T&Cs…please remove any personal information?

The reason for this request is this statement may be correct in the context of the whole letter. An example could be the ‘pay the same’ relates to costs incurred for usage (daily supply charges, energy costs etc) and not things you get paid for (e.g. feed in tariff for you solar).

The letter may qualify these are things you pay for and not things offset by any feed in tariff credits. This is also how bills are calculated where your energy use cost and daily supply charges (paid for items) are itemised, with solar feed in (if any) deduced from these costs (credit on the payment amount, giving a final bill amount). With changes to daily supply charges and energy usage rates with the new plan, the items paid for on your bill could well be similar.

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With one exception wait time was zero or minutes once through the robot prompts. For the exception we took a call back. We’re now better off for the effort by $300 on one service and $200 on the second. YMMV

On plans with Origin as the example.
In 2020 we were on a Solar Boost Plan with a 15c feed in tariff and a flat consumption tariff of 23.9c /kWh. At the commencement of 2021 when the 12 month agreement expired the same plan which was the best on offer dropped to 9c feed in. All other charges were the same as the old plan and consistent with the AER website. My recollection of the phone contact with Origin that followed was a slightly better offer of 12c for feed in on the same plan!

We also obtained a better offer from believe it or not AGL. We completed and emailed the paperwork to change suppliers. Surprised we also received a call from Origin some days later. They matched the 20c feed in tariff (not available on any published plan with AGL or Origin). There were no other changes compared with the previous years tariffs and charges.

I’m not so sure of as great an outcome for next year.
Best I can find today with Origin by going direct to their web site with my supply address is a 10c feed in tariff capped at 14kW daily export. (Origin Solar Boost + Origin Go). Of interest to some the Energy Made Easy web site offered 6 plans, none with that exact name as Origin offered us and all with 5c feed in tariffs.

Note:

Both Origin and the Energy Made Easy web sites assumed we consumed 4600 kWh annually and exported zero as the default estimate. Energy Made Easy will calculate on actual consumption if it is input manually from a bill. I add up 12 months consumption and export for the previous bills to get a better average than using just one bill.

What ever the plans offer, there is no one plan that suits all. Some solar PV users may have smaller systems and consume more than they export, hence the daily service cost and usage tariff may be most important. Others like some of our 3 phase connected rural residential neighbours can export nearly all they generate.

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Unfortunately, since it came as a lengthy .html email, which I exported to a .pdf. However this website only allows image files to be uploaded.
Aside from the quoted statements I provided there is an asterisked footnote in tiny font which states: “If we don’t have 12 months of usage data, we’ve calculated these amounts based on an estimate of your annual usage. These figures are GST inclusive and the calculations factor in any applicable discounts, solar feed-in tariffs and concessions, but exclude one-off benefits, fees and green and ancillary charges. These amounts may differ substantially based on your actual usage.”
In my case they have more than 12 months of figures, so they have no excuse.

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For those living in “Regional QLD” the QCA has published,
Draft determination on regulated retail electricity prices for regional Queensland, 2022–23.
Note: more concisely it applies to those living outside of the SE of the state. IE Ergon distribution area.

For those time poor the following offer a snapshot.

QCA Deputy Chair Madeline Brennan QC said that this year’s draft determination forecasts higher prices for most tariffs, including all the main residential and small business tariffs.

“The expected increase in draft prices is mainly due to a projected increase in energy costs, following several years of falling energy costs, which were a driver of price decreases for each of the last three years,” Ms Brennan said.

“Overall, the draft prices would result in a 4.2 per cent increase in the annual bill for a typical customer on the main residential tariff (tariff 11) and a 4.5 per cent increase for the typical customer on the main small business tariff (tariff 20).”

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The full details of the determination and proposed tariffs can be found at, https://www.qca.org.au/project/customers/electricity-prices/regulated-electricity-prices-for-regional-queensland-2022-23/

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Electricity prices are rising in Qld with the kilowatt rate, the daily charge, the solar feed in tariff
all set to rise because of the global cost increases of coal and gas, and the failures of power generators (the stations).

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As a follow on from my prior post re the draft proposed tariffs for regional QLD, here us a link to the QCA final determination (May 2022).

The QCA determination regulates the retail pricing of electricity to approx 650,000 residential customers in regional QLD, and approx 100,000 other small business customers (<1MVA demand).

The report references the average increases determined by the AER which apply to SE Qld (Energex the distributor). The retail tariffs for regional QLD include through the QCA determination an adjustment UTP (Uniform Tariff Policy), and subsidy adjustment provided by the State Govt.

As an example of the changers in residential tariffs for regional Qld per the QCA.
Tariff 11 increases (excluding GST).
from 88.392 cpd + 19.782 c/kWh (2021-2022)
… to 90.408 cpd + 22.135 c/kWh (2022-23)
Full details can be found in the linked QCA determinations.

Note: (added content)
The QCA also determined the regulated solar feedin tariff will increase to 9.3 c/kWh exported. It is based on the avoided cost of supply/transmission, and reflective of the true benefit to retailers.

The increases for regional customers are significantly less than the AER determination of 11.3% increase (the QCA referenced) for the average customer in the SE with Energex the distributor. Note Energex distributes to approx 1.4 million residential customers and 120,000 small business (LV customers).

For reference purposes only the QCA information booklet provided with the 2021-2022 determination may prove useful in understanding the methodology.

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Energex recently replaced my water meter, guess it’s for these changes/tracking?

Though consistently when I got to electricity prices in SE QLD, Energex is always the lowest for me.

I got this email 2 days ago

Electricity prices are changing

On 1 July 2022 your electricity prices will rise.

To see what’s changed, over the page we’ve listed what you pay now, as well as your new charges. You’ll also find your new charges on your first bill after 1 July 2022.

Reason for the change

Among other factors, our overall costs to buy and generate electricity have gone up in the last few months. Global rises in the price of coal and natural gas and unplanned power plant outages have had a big impact.

What this means for you

From 1 July 2022 your plan will be 7% off the 1 July 2022 reference price. For an average household in the Energex network using 6,300 kwh/year, the estimated annual cost of this plan is $1,831.00. Note that bills vary with usage.

Other things you need to know

If you have a Solar PV system installed at your premises, on 1 July 2022 the QLD solar meter charge will change from 6.7 to 8.526 cents per day (incl GST). This charge is a pass-through from your distributor and may vary from time to time.

It’s important that you have the information you need to choose the right plan. You can access your historical billing and usage data from us at any time by visiting originenergy.com.au/myaccount or our app, or by calling us on the number below.

To compare generally available offers for your area you can visit the Australian Government’s Energy Made Easy website at energymadeeasy.gov.au/offer-search – if you visit this site, make sure you have a copy of your bill handy as it has all the information you need to complete their form.
Ways to manage or reduce your energy bills

To manage your payments or stay on top of your energy usage, our online services and My Account can assist. If you’re having trouble paying your bill, remember, there is help available. For energy saving tips, check out originenergy.com.au/energytips

my changes according to Origin

Current charges (incl GST):
Charge description Units Your Charges as at 10 June 2022

Peak Usage cents per kWh 20.6310 T31-Night Rate(Super Economy) cents per kWh 15.4060 Supply Charge cents per day 102.7430 Supply Charge Controlled Load cents per day 2.3550

New charges (incl GST):
Charge description Units Your Charges as at 1 July 2022

Peak Usage cents per kWh 23.7300 T31-Night Rate(Super Economy) cents per kWh 18.1790 Supply Charge cents per day 118.1490 Supply Charge Controlled Load cents per day 2.7730

Usually I make/renew my Energex/Origin electricity contracts via One Big Switch - current offer is for 20% off

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With One Big Switch 20% off will be from July 1, 2022

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Energex are not the retailer, Origin are the retailer. In SE Qld Energex and Ergon (State Govt Owned Businesses) and some smaller non Govt businesses are the State’s power generators. The power they produce is then on-sold through our retailers. So it at the moment will always be Energex, Ergon, and a few smaller generators, the One Big Switch will be comparing the pricing of the various retailers. Energex at one time did provide retail services but Peter Beatty and the Labor State Govt of the time removed the generator from the retail market and put a number of middle men into the process so we paid more to maintain their costs as well.

You may remember SEQEB (South East Qld Electricity Board) and those in Nth Qld would perhaps remember NORQEB (North Qld Electricity Board), I can’t remember if there was a Central Qld Board.

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