northernbird

The WA Government have just increased the supply charge from 1st July. It has increased from 48c per day to 86c per day.

ozzieeagle

I'm not sure why Arkon is paying 57c per KWH as the small business prices for NSW are at least 60 pct cheaper than that through AGL. That's without things like 30 pct discounts.

https://www.agl.com.au/-/media/AGLDa...GL367040MS.pdf





Unless he is on a solar tariff of course, where the proof of the pudding is on how much electricity you produce yourself, or the bill at the end of the 3 months averaged out across 12 months. IE: you shouldn't be running on Solar unless you know you can produce at least 90pct of your own electricity needs.





As for supply charges, they are immaterial in all of this, in fact, if you are a large electricity user (say 25KWH) the first clue to very cheap electricity rates, are the highest supply charges. In other words, high supply charges really only affect those using less than 10kwh per day.

goldchoccycoin

I'm in Queensland and have been tracking my utility bills for a good few years and supply charges are the killer for me (use ~4kWh per day, single, full time worker so out of the house all day and no pool);

In 2009 I paid;
14.80c per kWh and it was 18c per day usage

Today;
26.61c per kWh and 106c per day usage (79.8% increase for Electricity and 489% increase in supply charge, nearly 10% and 61% per year).

No possible way to reduce your bills as the increase in supply charge completely negates any change in electricity use behaviour. Really feel for families on low income.

Amazulu

The electricity price we are paying today is effectively another form of taxation - taxation that you have no choice to pay

ozzieeagle

At that level of usage, you're better off of grid with a generator. Wouldn't even bother with Solar.

It's almost an option worth exploring for you.

I reckon I'd use more in my Caravan.

goldchoccycoin

I wish ozzieeagle - I'd love to live off-grid, but work is somewhat specialised and requires city living (unless I was prepared to do a 60 minute or more commute, which I'm not!). It would be great to share supply costs with my neighbours - all four units in one block pay the outrageous costs for supply when it's 'supplied' to one address!

Amazulu

My plan over the coming years is to go totally off-grid and I want to do as much of the work as possible. I have a fairly large house with a 3-phase supply so this will be somewhat technically challenging on a tight budget

The price of Lion storage is coming down but ATM Tesla Powerwall is too expensive. There are new players coming into the market and the arrival of Amazon in Australia will open up the market even more

So it will be:
Lots of solar panels
Battery storage - I will need lots of it
A solar storage interface/inverter (I can adapt a 3-phase motor VSD starter to do this coupled with a PLC - all stuff I can get for next to nothing 2nd hand)
Back up diesel generator (that if I get this right would only be used on rare occasions)
Efficiency - LED lighting (my house is nearly all LED already), ground source heat-pump hot water, better insulation etc

An interesting project anyway

Beoz

Just curious

How long would it take you to see a ROI with an investment like that?

Amazulu

I'm not sure yet. I'm waiting to see how prices of solar and batteries pan out and how much of it I can do myself

I would imagine somewhere in the region of 5 years

Beoz

Would be interesting to see what the cost of everything would be, each component, to see its 5 year viability plan.

On current costs how long would the ROI take?

arkon

AGL do look a lot cheaper but if you check their endeavour area it doesn't cover most of the Sydney basin and definitely not my area. The only 2 companies I can use are Origin and energy Australia and they are both within a few cents of each other.

On the good news front I complained to my supplier and threatened to move and they just reduced my daily charge from $6.50 to $1.85 per day and removed the demand charge. The kWh rates still all went up nearly double though. Oh and guess what happened on Saturday? The whole of the town where my business is had a power cut for 90 minutes, I lost about a thousand dollars as a result.

The power out took out the phones and internet too and they aren't due for repair until Thursday afternoon!

ozzieeagle

In that case you should be paying around 36 cents per kwh then take off 24 pct discount, which is applicable to most business owners, through Energy Australia. There are small savings with the other specific plans, but this is the simplest. Ive used 2325 as the Post Code.... Cessnock.


https://secure.energyaustralia.com.a...NE390945SS.pdf


Unless you have Solar, then again thats down to your system on how much return you get from your configuration.

arkon

Thanks ozzieeagle but that's not the quote I just got from them when I just called them. Where did you get that quote sheet from?

Amazulu

I reckon it would take about 10 years to get ROI today

Ultimately, as long as I get an eventual ROI, I don't care how long it takes. I want to do this because I can

ozzieeagle

Online yesterday.... here.

https://secure.energyaustralia.com.a...actSheets.aspx


I can always do a little bit better than they quote in these as well. First month free, even week if all else fails. I call it "Del boy mode"


Try and fix it for more than 12 months as well.