This is how I felt after spending 2 days trying to work out the best electricity plans for solar owners.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, electricity bills are confusing.
If you are one of those rare people who don’t find electricity bills confusing, then I have two things to say to you. Firstly, “Good for you”.
Secondly, “When are you returning to your home planet?” because I find it hard to believe you are human.
Because they are so confusing, it is very difficult to know which retailer offers the best plan for your household. Especially for people with rooftop solar, as they have the additional complication of accounting for feed-in tariffs.
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UPDATE: May 21, 2020: Since this article was originally published, SolarQuotes has developed a handy tool that enables solar owners to easily compare electricity plans and feed in tariffs.
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To help out Australians with solar I have spent a great deal of time comparing electricity plans, a task I hate more than trimming my horse’s hoofnails1, to determine which deals are the best.
Electricity Plans Are Meant To Be Confusing
Electricity retailer plans are intentionally confusing.
The reason is straightforward. If you were an electricity retailer and you didn’t have the lowest cost plans, would you want people to be able to easily find that out? In case you are a tad naive, the answer is no.
If you are the electricity retailer with the lowest cost plan you might benefit from people being able to easily find that out. But there can only be one lowest cost retailer and there are over a dozen retailers in South Australia alone, so good luck getting the rest of the industry to go along with easy to understand electricity plans.
Online Comparison Tools
There are electricity plan comparison tools available online to help people find the best deal for them. Even SolarQuotes has one. Ours is of course lovely, but even the best can only make use of information that electricity retailers make available.
I have had an electricity retailer tell me a plan a comparison tool presented me with did not exist. They blamed the tool, but I’m pretty sure I know who the real tool was.
Electricity Retailers Rely On Human Inertia
Because electricity plans are confusing most people just stick to the one they have. A minority chop and change constantly and, quite possibly, randomly.
I think some people change every time an electricity retailer salesperson turns up at their door. I used to get a lot of them before I started feeding my horse Fruit Tingles to make him foam at the mouth.
The Average Solar Household
In order to compare plans I had to work out what a typical solar household is like. I could have used my own home as an example, but there is no point because I am weird. For a start, there’s just me and my horse and the occasional crowd of children. I have no idea where these children come from. Actually, that may be why I have so many.
According to the Bureau of Statistics the average Australian household contains 2.6 people, 0.001 horses, and 0.1 of a completed Census form. I’ve decided to round this up to three people, simply because most of us come in discrete units and not at all because I blatantly discriminate against partial Australians.
Feed-in Tariff
My example household won’t have one of the high feed-in tariffs that was available in the past. If you still have a high feed-in tariff, that’s great, and it probably won’t make a great deal of difference to which plan will be the lowest cost one for you.
Note some retailers don’t give feed-in tariffs for systems larger than 5 kilowatts or 3.3 kilowatts in some cases. So watch out for that if you have a big one.
Average Solar System Size
Here in Adelaide the size of the most commonly installed rooftop solar system is around 5 kilowatts. But there are still plenty of smaller systems around, so I am going to assume my example household has a 3 kilowatt north facing system and half the electricity it produces is exported. In Adelaide it would produce around 4,500 kilowatt-hours a year.
Grid Electricity Use
My sources2 tell me the average 3 person household in Adelaide uses 6,076 kilowatt-hours a year. If they self consume 50% of their solar electricity they will use around 3,826 kilowatt-hours of grid electricity per year.
Don’t Be Too Worried If Your Home Is Different
Your household is probably different from my three person, three kilowatt, 50% self consumption example. But the results I get should still be a good guide to what is the cheapest plan for you. The amount you will have to pay on your bills will vary, but the ranking from lowest cost retailer to most expensive should remain reasonably accurate.
I Assumed Standard Tariffs
Most households with rooftop solar benefit from being on a standard tariff rather than a time-of-use or demand tariff. And this makes me glad because it made my job comparing them a lot easier. Some people with rooftop solar may benefit from a time-of-use tariff if their consumption patters are unusual, but most will find a standard tariff to be either as good or better.
I Compared The Best Plans Available
Electricity retailers usually have multiple plans available and so I chose the one with the lowest overall cost for my example household I could find. Often these involve a contract that may be one or two or even three years. I used these because most people are likely to stay where they are over that time and the penalty for breaking a contract is not too extreme. Also, if you do move, it is likely they will let you to transfer your contract to your new address.
I also included any discounts for direct debit, paying bills on time, and electronic billing. So if direct debits and electronic bills are not your bag, baby, you may find you have to pay a little more.
Retailer Plan ID
I used electricity plans from the retailers’ own sites to make the comparisons. I included the plans’ identification numbers so you can quote them if you give them a call. However, that might not work. I’ve called a retailer and given them a plan number and they didn’t know what I was talking about. But after I told them it was off their own site they were able to look it up and help me.
Crunching The Numbers
I’m afraid no matter what the retailers tell you that they charge per kilowatt-hour, or what discounts they give, or how the discounts are applied, it is all basically bullshit. You must sit down and crunch the numbers and work out what you are actually likely to pay over a year.
I spent two days doing just that. Two days I’ll never get back.
I have taken into account daily supply charges, the price per kilowatt-hour, what discounts they give, how the discounts are applied, and seasonal and other variations in price, to work out how much each plan will cost my example household per year. I haven’t included these details in the rankings below to spare you from having the deal with them. But if you want some of the nitty gritty details just let me know in the comments. And if you see I’ve made a mistake, please let me know.
Adelaide Electricity Retailer Plan Rankings
I have ranked the electricity retailers for Adelaide below from lowest cost to highest. As you can see, there is one clear winner:
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* While their site told me they provided a feed-in tariff, when I called Alinta the person who answered the phone could not tell me if they had one or not. If they don’t, their plan would cost my example household $1,401 a year.
** Red Energy does not support solar in South Australia and does not offer a feed-in tariff.
*** On the Powerdirect energy price fact sheet it gives the feed-in tariff as 8 cents, but their site says it is 6.8 cents. When I called them to check they confirmed it was 6.8 cents for new customers.
**** If you call Powerdirect they may give you an 18% discount off your kilowatt-hour charges. But this is not mentioned on their energy price fact sheets and when I called them they could not tell me if I would be able to get the discount, so I did not include it. With the discount the annual total would be around $1,242.
How total bill compares with feed in tariff rate. Notice that a high feed in tariff does not correlate with a lower bill.
Simply Energy Takes First Place
Simply Energy is the clear winner with an annual cost 15% less than the runner-up. That is very impressive and not what I expected. I thought there would be several retailers vying for the lowest cost position.
Simply Energy Does Not Have Good Reviews
Now you know who the cheapest electricity retailer is, I expect you’ll want to rush to sign up with them. But before you do, I will just let you know that according to the Product Review site Simply Energy has 492 reviews with an average rating of 1.4 out of 5. Out of those 492 reviews, 422 are a measly single star.
Retailer Ratings According To Product Review
While Simply Energy does poorly on the Product Review site, the giant retailers AGL and Origin do even worse as they both have a rating of 1.3 out of 5. Here are the scores Product Review gives electricity retailers out of 5:
Electricity Retailer Customer Ratings
Product Review does not have ratings for Commander Power & Gas, Sanctuary or Urth Energy. [Update 5th of February 2016: Unfortunately, Urth Energy has gone bust and is no longer around.]
Take The Product Review Site Ratings With A Few Grains Of Salt
Are AGL and Origin two of the worst electricity retailers in Australia, as their 1.3 rating on Product Review suggests? I don’t think so. Both these companies are enormous and have millions of customers each. The vast bulk are probably satisfied with the service they receive or at least are not upset enough to complain. But out of those millions of customers a small minority get ticked off and write bad reviews.
But when a much smaller company gets a comparable amount of reviews giving it terrible 1 star ratings, I find that cause for concern.
I’m not saying don’t use Simply Energy. I’m just saying put some of the money you save to one side to buy a stress ball in case things go pear shaped. But it will probably be okay. After all, we all make mistakes. But when you make mistakes the ACCC fines you for, it is a bit of a worry.
Mind you, Simply Energy is not the only one to be dinged by the ACCC. AGL, Energy Australia, and Origin have all paid hefty fines.
High Feed-In Tariffs Do Not Make For The Lowest Cost Plans
There is no real correlation between the feed-in tariff offered and the lowest cost plan for solar households. While Urth Energy [Update 5th February: Urth Energy is no longer around.] with its 10 cent feed-in tariff is the second lowest cost plan. Click Energy’s Shine Plus plan with its 12 cent feed-in tariff is the third most expensive. The moral is, you have to look at the whole deal and not just the feed-in tariff if you want to save money.
My Job Is Done
Well, it looks like I’m finished here. You all now know the cheapest electricity plans available in Adelaide. I hope you find the information helpful.
What’s that? You don’t live in Adelaide? You want me to crunch the numbers for other areas? Do you have any idea how how long that will take me? Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just move to Adelaide instead?
Oh, all right! I’ll do another location for you. But only Sydney!
Don’t live in Adelaide or Sydney?
If you don’t live in Adelaide or Sydney you can use our solar friendly retailer comparison tool to do a quick and dirty comparison where you live. It won’t have my superhuman error-checking included – but you can enter your last bill details and get an estimate of which retailer will be cheapest based on the solar feed in and consumption tariffs available.
Sydney Example Household
The average 3 person home in Sydney without gas uses 7,840 kilowatt-hours a year. I will assume my example Sydney home has a 3 kilowatt north facing solar system and self consumes half the approximately 4,100 kilowatt-hours it generates each year. Their grid consumption will be 5,790 kilowatt-hours per year.
I will only use retail plans for the Endeavour network area, which covers the western suburbs, because that’s where the majority of people in Sydney live. Endeavour effectively limits most households to installing rooftop solar with inverters and panel capacity below 5 kilowatts. So despite Sydney people using more electricity and receiving less sunshine than in Adelaide, it seems reasonable to use a three kilowatt system for my example.
Sydney Electricity Retailer Plan Rankings
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* You will also have to shell out an additional $99 when you first join Mojo.
** Log in to Powershop’s site each month and receive an extra discount that will lower the annual cost to $1,358.
*** The maximum solar system size that can receive a 10 cent feed-in tariff from Sanctuary Energy is 3.3 kilowatts.
**** When I called Momentum, the person on the phone told me, as far as he was aware, they did not have a feed-in tariff for new solar in NSW.
Sydney results
So the feed-in tariff you receive indicates nothing about which will be the lowest cost plan for you. When shopping around be sure to look at the total cost of the plans on offer.
If you don’t want to do the maths yourself, then you can use our solar friendly retailer comparison tool. You can enter the details from previous bills and see what those bills would have been with the other retailers. It is not quite as accurate as sitting down with a spreadsheet and and a telephone for a couple of days, like I did, but it may save your head from exploding in frustration.
About Ronald Brakels
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Of course their confusing, so confusing in fact that AGL did not have an answer for me as to why they charged me twice for a bill once in March and then again in September for the same period only a different amount.
Oh , it’s because the first bill was an estimate and the second was an actual um so how come it took you so long to send me the revised bill?
Oh, let me have a look ummmm.your balance is $3.84
We issued you a credit for the last bill.
Okay can i see the credit ?It doesn’t show up on my account all i can see is where you charged me $76.00 for my first bill and then $102.00 for the second bill.
Oh hang on let me send you the credit note.
days later still no note so I send them an email and another please explain.
The reply was exactly the same as the first explanation.
So, I ask, are you charging me twice or are you charging me the difference between the two bills ?
days later another reply.
Dear Sir, we noticed you are now on a quarterly cycle but before you were on a monthly cycle hence the estimate and further to this we have cancelled the $102.00 actual bill because you paid the estimated bill.
The lesson i guess is do not go onto a monthly cycle.
The second lesson was that AGL don’t know what they are doing.
The third lesson is your current provider is probably as cheap as it gets and after doing some comparisons on these compare electricity prices and we will save you heaps, turns out they save you next to nothing.
As a matter of fact the 3 estimates i got were up to $100.00 more expensive per quarter.
This tells me they are all in collusion over prices ,an electricity cartel rubber stamped by your state government.
I may as well go and live in Columbia
….or go stand-alone. (Yep, again!)
I tried to post a bill of mine (from Origin), but can’t.
It was from the 3rd quarter last year ~ June/July/August ~ (ie winter here in Victoria) and shows a CREDIT of $197 (after all costs had been deducted, including an iniquitous $138 ‘service-to-property’ charge.
Happy to email it to anyone who sends an address to [email protected]
Point is it CAN be worthwhile being connected to the grid ~ IF you don’t play the game by THEIR rules. (or use absurd amounts of energy!)
eg. Want to be certain of winning a football match??….Take a cricket-bat.
Have gone from ORIGIN to AGL. origin want to give me>>10% discount for electric and 15c for my solar. but AGL want or did give me >>25% discount and 11c for my solar but its $91 for the supply charge. I have a 3kw solar system which is pretty good 18-19 kw per day at the moment .Just wondering if that deal is the best because origin charge also $88 for supply. I only use about 900kw per quarter My bill before that was down to 660kw.Am only a pensioner but always try to find cheaper deals.
yours sincerely Mr. Rawlings
PS if you can see any problems with this please be kind enough to reply.
With the higher feed-in tariff you should be ahead roughly 40 cents a day, even with the higher supply charge. This is assuming you send half the solar electricity you generate into the grid and assuming there is not a large difference in what you pay per kilowatt-hour after discounts.
thanks for your comments Ronald with 5 kilowatt solar system it appears to be good but we will give it 3 months then reply more here. and being a dinosaur I take my gas reading monthly and give to their resolutions department …they are very good and generate my bill straight away. the electricity was only for 2 months and the total here was only $32.06.>>>>so far so happy. My gas is constant at $32.00 monthly.
thanks again
Solar generating around 18 kilowatts from 6am to 6pm I check this every day near to nil on rain and cloud affected days
discount on gas for me is 19% from AGL N.S.W
Don’t ask the first person you speak to on the phone with AGL.>>>>> ASK FOR THE RESOLUTIONS DEPARTMENT. They are very thorough with their response to solve your problem always, as I truly know from past experiences like yours.
Chris
BTW the Sydney estimate is wrong.
A 3KW system will not generate 3KW’s it will generate far less and like a lot of people you fall into the trap of using total energy generated as your yardstick of consumption which is clearly incorrect.
If you system is generating at peak 2.4KW than most of the other time it will be generating far less.
Stick your air conditioner on with this system and you will be drawing from the grid all day as you will only generate enough current to run an average reverse cycle conditioner for one to two hours provided everything else in your home is switched off.
That of course is only during the day so at night you will be drawing all your current from the grid.
The night figure would be around 10KW add to this your day consumption from the grid you are probably looking at 15KW from the grid, you would be feeding very little back to the grid at best around 10KW.
I have a 6.3KW system which maxes out at 5KW today for instance it produced 35KW total of which 20 to 25KW went back to the grid, I used 10KW and purchased 10 to 15 KW for my night use.
A 3 kilowatt north facing rooftop solar system can generate an average of 11.2 kilowatt-hours a day in Sydney, which adds up to around 4,100 kilowatt-hours a year. Most households will export a significant portion of this to the grid. The amount exported will vary considerably, depending on electricity consumption habits and whether or not people are home during the day. The average total electricity consumption of a 3 person Sydney household without gas is around 21.5 kilowatt-hours per day.
BTW, YOUR premises are wrong.
1…..I have a 2.4 kw (Perlight panels) system which often ~ in just-right conditions ~ cranks out just over 3 kw. (In the Latrobe Valley east of Melbourne)
2….. ” like a lot of people you fall into the trap of using total energy generated as your yardstick of consumption….” Name THREE of the “lot”.
…and then you might like to DEFINE ‘consumption’. eg. do YOU calculate line-losses as ‘consumption’??
Assertions without reference to actual numbers are idiotic.
(You’re not a politician, are you?)
Aha!… That explains the beard! Only a mosochist would “spend a lot of time comparing electricity plans”
The first rule of any commercial deal is:- It’s YOUR money, Ralph, and THEY want it.
Riders to rule one:- (a) YOU want to get the most you can for your money, and (b) THEY want to give the least they can for your money.
Solution standardised across the Galaxy:- If at first you don’t succeed, get a bigger hammer.
There was a segment on the news this morning about the varying prices in all sorts of industries: including the vastly different prices in two McDonalds shops in the same street. The obvious solution is to stop eating junk-food. If necessary grow your own. (Your horse’ll help!)
ps…. If I were sporting a haircut like yours (picture above) I’d hesitate to suggest someone else hails from off-planet. 😉
Indeed? …. “Footnotes: A task which should be easy as he only has one per foot ”
….um……how many feet??
(Numbercrucher)
Like most horses, he has four feet. Or hooves, if you want to be technical about it. There is no truth at all to the rumor I used to have a two legged horse called Motorbike.
Hi Ronald, this is awesome! …Any chance you could be convinced to do this for Melbourne too?
Hello Ronald. I’ve been a customer of Simply Energy for over eight years and installed a solar system in December 2013.
Family members were living in the house and paid the electricity bills .. After a couple of years I received a number of letters claiming that an internal audit had revealed that I had not been credited the solar feed in. The credit amount totalled over $900.
This year I checked the bill to May 2016 which included the solar credit. Then the bill ending August 2016 arrived and no solar credit. When I contacted the company I was advised that an amended bill had been issued the day before .
My conclusion is that Simply Energy are honest but their computer systems are very unreliable. You need to carefully track any changes you make and also to carefully read the billing advices.
Hi Ronald and all you guys from Solar Quotes. I think you are doing a marvellous job promoting and educating us about PV.
I have learnt from your opinion that it will be years before batteries will sufficient in capacity and price before going off grid, and I totally agree with you.
I have a 6 kW PV system, 36 kWh battery bank (lead gel) and run a household of 6 people 24/7.
I have dual side by side dual power points. They are marked “Grid” and “PV”. They are located in the bathroom and Kitchen as this is where most power is used. The grid power points are used for night time aircon, and an occasional night time roast or the 30 min run of the dryer. The PV is capable of all other household items including two fridges, two tv, all light, 4 computers, fans etc.
I wouldn’t dream of quitting the grid supply.
After putting in another 4 kW PV, I might be close to not using the grid at all, but quitting it NO. If I can run my 4 split system aircon during most of the day, I might not need them on at night. With my present system I can run 2 of them during sunny days.
I think it is a matter of getting the PV system size correct.
I am barred from export to the grid, and why would I at 6 c kWh.
After 26 years, my125 litre 1800 W hot water tank finally rusted out in the bottom. I had it on my PV supply for the last 2 years.
This might interest somebody. I just bought a second hand 250 litre 3600 W tank and about to change the element out, 1800 W $29 including postage. My surplus power will go into the tank. The tank uses about 10 kWh a day and that means resizing my system. The reason for changing the element out…. inverter capacity.
If people need more power than they are allowed to install, then there are Zero Export Devices by which you can draw from the grid but no export, and if you balance your system size to match, you can virtually use all of your generated power.
As much as you might dislike the power companies, I think it will be a long time before you can completely say goodbye to them.
John Nielsen, Silkwood
Would the simply energy (Adelaide) still be a better deal than my 8.2c energy Australia plan. I have a 3 person home with a 6.5 kw system north west facing.
Heath, even if you exported every single kilowatt-hour your rooftop solar system generated you would only make around $166 more dollars a year from an 8.2 cent feed-in tariff compared to Simply Energy’s 6.8 cent one. Since you be using a portion of that yourself it would be less, so feed in tariffs don’t make a large difference to which plan is the cheapest. So Simply Energy would almost certainly be a cheaper plan for you.
This isn’t a recommendation that you change, I’ll leave the choice up to you. I’ll just say Simply Energy’s plan should be cheaper.
Well I rang them today and as from today the 14th there rates have risen but the feed in tariff is the same. I asked how much by and they didn’t have the old rate on hand. Seems good deals don’t last long or you may have influenced there decision lol. Maybe the 10c feed in tariff one is better for me?
Is there any chance you could run your calculator on the best electricity plans for Brisbane solar panel owners?
That would be awesome!
Maybe… If I take a nice long holiday first to build up my strength.
But while the position of retailers may move up or down, in general they are likely to be roughly consistent across states.
I live in the South of Brissie,While hardly an exhaustive comparison I found Diamond Energy the best for me, (with 2.5 Kw solar PV system), facing East, yes their Feed In Tariff is lower than some of the Click energy plans their overall price/ cost is lower,
I export approx two time what I use from the grid, based on the two way meter readings.
I first installed a 1.5 Kw system, in 2010 but upgraded to the 2.5 around 2012-2013, so the amount I export should actually be a larger percentage.
one thing I didn’t like about Click, was they took $50 a month ,only to have it refunded when the quarterly meter read happened
I heard they may no longer do this ( for some customers)
Previously I have also used Origin, Power Direct (Part of AGL) and AGL.
When I closed my Power Direct account they refused to give me the refund for the FIT, and even after contacting the power ombudsman they dragged their heels in refunding me
Owner PV since 3 years, have been keeping data on usage, and feed in on daily basis. This was done to see whether there were performance issues correlated to temperature and age of panels.
It also provides me with real figures when it comes to comparing cost of electricity, which I do by detailed spreadsheet.
Recently changed supplier but that was before learning about URTH ENERGY, TRADER, where they pay FIT based on spot prices. This sounds very interesting approach, do you have an opinion?
Have read your remarks on suppliers and agree with them. Took AGL to Ombudsman and after months of fighting, and $100 ‘gift’ they were still making mistakes on my bills. Arrogant, incompetent and rude. Now AGL is offering deal with batteries; sounds good but I don’t trust them.
Urth Energy does appear to have a good combination of high feed-in tariff and low overall electricity bills. They definitely do seem to be one of the better choices out there, just from looking at their energy plans.
they have gone into administration
https://www.urthenergy.com.au/administration
I am retired and live alone in Newcastle, NSW. I use approx 5kw per day. I have 4 kw of solar on the roof, a Goodwe inverter and a 5.4kw GCL lithium battery that powers everything. I notice that the battery runs down to approx 25 % most nights, and I get a full recharge within a few hours the next day, even on cloudy, rainy days. I use all my power tools, welder etc and do most cooking, laundry etc, and use ceiling fans instead of aircon. I am awaiting my first electricity bill since installation in Feb 2017, in anticipation.
The real reason I am writing is to say this. I was in the middle east in 2003. I immediately noticed that petrol prices over there were 10c/litre compared to 95 c/litre over in Oz. Thats because they have an abundance of a natural resource. Now, we have massive coal and gas reserves, yet we pay the second highest power prices in the world. Our politicians need to acquire the coal and gas reserves, and run it as a Federal function, and we would become the lucky country all over again.
I wonder how Agl stacks up now in 2017 with their 16.3 cent feed in. Currently with simply energy but about to get a 6.6kw system. I think paying a couple cents more for usage with Agl would work better with a feed in tariff that’s paying more than double than simply’s 6.8c.
I found Red Energy (in S.A.) best so far: pay 16c Fit provided you pay on time.
Their other figures are good to.
I changed to AGL after Origin wanted to give me 15c per kilowatt on my solar and 10% ?off the electricity but they still raised prices to near 30c and the supply charge also went up from $72 per quarter to $88..
So I asked AGL what could they do for a pensioner. They asked if I had a seniors card, I told them yes . So they offered me this deal>>>>25% off electricity and 11c per kilowatt off solar and $91supply charge. Their prices have also gone up after the “regulator” had granted all a 25% increase. The deals looks close to being the same so only time will tell if pensioners get some relief in N.S.W
I was promised a $100 credit on my first electricity bill and a 11.2 c/kwh solar feed in credit from origin when I signed on with them.
My first electricity bill did not include this $100 credit and I only received a solar feed in credit of 6 c/kwh.
Be wary of entering into a contract over the phone and insist on receiving an e-mail offer or by post before signing on.
With 2 of my last 3 retailers the promised contract details and welcome pack that I was due to receive before the 10 day cooling off period expired never arrived, so I complained and threatened to leave/did leave to get a better offer.