Weeks after the Australian Energy Regulator revealed price hikes for Ausgrid, Essential, Endeavour, Energex and SAPN customers, retailers AGL and Origin have announced their own price rises.
Customers on variable rate contracts will see their bills rise in from July 1 in NSW, South Australia and Queensland, and in Victoria from August 1, with rises ranging from the merely painful 21% to an eye-watering 30%.
The bruising bill increases – topping out at an average $565 per bill for a residential AGL customer in South Australia, and a breathtaking $1133 for an Origin small business customer in South Australia – are driving a boom in solar and battery quotes. SolarQuotes is experiencing consistent high demand, even during the typically slow King/Queen’s Birthday weekend.
AGL
AGL attributed its rises to the Russia/Ukraine war’s impact on coal and gas prices; extreme weather which disrupted coal supply chains; elevated and international LNG prices.
And Australia’s aging fossil fuel generation plant was also a problem, with AGL citing “reliability issues … including sustained and unplanned outages of baseload generation plants”.
AGL’s residential rises are 29.7% in NSW ($540 per bill), 26.4% in Queensland ($447 per bill), 29.8% in South Australia ($565 per bill) and 25.5% in Victoria ($341).
AGL’s hardship program is Staying Connected, and those in the program will receive up to $400 in bill credits during the winter.
Origin
Origin’s residential customers will cop a 21.1% rise in NSW (an average increase of $407), 21.6% in Queensland ($347 per bill), 24.2% in South Australia ($405 per bill), and 25.5% in Victoria ($361 per bill).
Origin’s general manager of brand and customer experience, Catherine Anderson, told the ABC that the company will absorb customers’ pain in its Power On hardship program.
Feed in Tariffs
There’s some solace Origin solar feed in customers in some states, with small increases in payments coming on July 1. Origin’s Solar Boost and Solar Boost Plus plans are unchanged, but other customers in the ACT will go from 8c/kWh to 10c/kWh; in NSW the change is 5c/kWh to 7c/kWh, and in South Australia from 5c/kWh to 6c/kWh.
There’s no change in Queensland; in Victoria, the tariff drops from 5.2c/kWh to 4.9c/kWh.
AGL hasn’t announced any plans to change its feed-in tariffs.
Don’t Despair! Beat rising electricity prices:
- Instantly compare electricity plans and Feed-In-Tariffs in your postcode.
- Use our friends at Bill Hero to find a better plan1 and switch.
- Put your new electricity rates into our solar calculator to discover how quickly solar and batteries will pay back.
Footnotes
- Full disclosure: if you sign up for Bill-Hero through that link, we get a small referral fee ↩
About Richard Chirgwin
RSS - Posts
I’d be happy with “only” 30%
Mine in Queensland are going up 40% with AGL
In SA peak (AGL) for my parents is almost 50%, off peak is just shy of 100% !!!!
Supply charge up just shy of 50%
50 – 100% increase is real “Please install solar so that you don’t have to give us any more money” type of increase.
Of course renters in the situation are going to be left out in the cold (or the hot in summer).
I keep seeing this 30% figure. My per kWh went up by over 50% and the daily charge by about 30%. Oh and the demand charge by 10% – don’t get me started on the demand charge. Calculating over a year, my bill will be 80% higher than what it was last year.
Of course they – Alinta – charge me 50% more for taking their energy but they don’t increase the FiT.
I’m with Alinta in QLD. My increase is 50% also. It’s like they just don’t want our business.
Judging by the comments above, perhaps I really shouldn’t grumble about a mere ~24% increase in the usage charge, plus a mere ~13% increase in daily use fees. On the plus side there’s no change in the solar metering fee.
On the downside the FiT still hasn’t budged, barring minor fiddling with the higher rate for the first few kWh each day.
Given the cost of batteries, and the fact that electricity costs less FiT payments was about break even last year, there’s no incentive to invest yet. Worse, given the increase in costs will likely only be a couple hundred dollars, and Labor is supposed to be giving each grid connected household $500+ (I believe some states are offering more to certain households but don’t know the details) that should mean a net profit in the year ahead. : – )
AGL has changed its FIT from 10c/kWh for the first 14kWh (then to 5c for the remaining) to now 15c/kWh for the first 14kW
I believe the 15c/5c deal ends on June 30th.
I was on a 12c/kWh FIT and got knocked down to a 10c/5c deal. If I hadnt seen the TV ad for the 15/5c deal I would have merrily assumed that everyone else was being knocked down to the 10c/5c deal….thats what AGL likes you to think.
It is still here. 15c/6c deal is alive and kicking
To get the higher FiT for the first 14units you need to pay a much higher price for imports
That’s not correct. The new Solar saver TOU tarrifs from July 1 are the same whether you go on the 15c/5c FIT or stay on the standard 12c/5c deal..
I looked at your comparison chart but for Origin you are not completely up to date. My FiT is 12c. However, some of my charges are higher.I don’t have peak and off-peak. but this is what I was told about the increases:
CL 2 usage 23.353
General usage 32.043
Daily SC 3.729
Solar M.C. 8.526
Daily SC 133.991!
But AGL would offer 15c FiT
Qld: My Sumo price was going from 20c per kWh to 32c, and daily charge from around $1 to 1.20. So I just swapped to Nectr and they lock in a price for a year 23.9c/kWh and 99c/day. Well
Worth the swap.
And what is the FiT Dougal?
AGL in SA – Solar Savers TOU Plan
Peak – up 32%
Shoulder – up 56%
OFF PEAK – up 49%
Supply Charge – up 11%
FIT unchanged – 15c/5c (14kWh per day limit for high rate)
All CL TOU rates up with Shoulder up by a whopping 74%
My Solar unit is now 16 years old. I wanted to upgrade to a 4-5 kw solar system, all was ready to go, however, the power company wanted to REDUCE my feed in tariff even though we are still in the same place and have not shifted this I believe is NOT a fair go.
I have been given Solar quotes but companies try to give too many porkys saying I would be getting new Solar unit free of charge with government rebates etc. Would companies please be honest?
Have you tried getting quotes through this website Roger?
I still have 12cFiT with Origin
AGL South Australia – was on Essentials Plus – General Usage 33 cents/kWh, Supply Charge 73.71 cents/kWh, FIT 14.2 cents/kWh. Offered Core Electricity – General Usage 41.9 cents/kWh (+27%), Supply Charge 98.97 cents/kWh (+34%), FIT 5.0 cents/kWh (-65%). All prices ex GST. We have 5.2 kW of solar panels. Adding up quarterly bills for the last 12 months we paid AGL $288 inc GST for power and we still have an outstanding credit of $209. Adding up quarterly bills for the last 12 months based on the new rates we would have paid $1,369 inc GST. This is an increase of 375%.
That sounds about right. Im on the AGL solar savers plan in SA. With a 14.4kW PV system and a Powerwall the increase in annual cost based on old and new rates is around 329%. My calculation based on 12 months of actual usage data.
A Powershop email received today 21/6:
“On 1 August 2023, our GreenPower pack prices on the Powershop app are changing from 3.7 cents per kilowatt-hour (c/kWh) to 5.5c/kWh, incl GST.”
That is ~49% increase.
Question: On the Solar Quotes comparison tool, have these price increases across brands been used or are they yet to be implemented as the new prices are not in effect as yet?
Compare Electricity Plans and Solar Feed-In Tariffs
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/energy/
This is the rate increases from 1 July 2023 on my Powershop account:
Powershop – Postcode 2086 FY2023 FY2024 Increase
Off peak period (c/kWh) 14.99 19.18 28%
Peak period (c/kWh) 39.60 50.68 28%
Shoulder Period (c/kWh) 22.00 28.15 28%
Controlled Load One (c/kWh) 12.93 16.15 25%
FIT Voluntary (c/kWh) -5.00 -5.00 0%
Daily Supply Charge (c/day) 137.50 151.46 10%
Daily Supply Charge (c/day) 9.52 9.92 4%
Wasn’t the move to renewables supposed to make our power cheaper? Seems the more we add, the greater the cost. to the consumer.
Hi all, late to the thread sorry.
We had our renewed system (13.2+16kWh bumped to 19.2) fitted end of May and use commenced in June.
Origin/SAPN hit us with the double whammy: not only were we moved to ToU tarrifs, but one month later we were hit with Origin’s price rises.
So our Origin SA ToU tariffs (cents per kWh) changed from
Off Peak 26.301 to 33.396 (26.976%)
Peak 44.352 to 56.43 (27.232%)
Shoulder 21.78 to 27.775 (27.525%)
Daily supply charge changes:
95.139 to 107.459 (12.949%)