Electricity prices

[willedoo]

Today I rang Red Energy and arranged swapping to them after my next Origin bill due in a couple of weeks. It was very refreshing to talk to Australian based customer support. Everything worked well and went great just like it used to with Origin before they outsourced their customer support overseas. Sub standard customer support is the number one reason I'm leaving Origin; the data breach incident is just another contributing factor. At the end of this month it's good riddance Origin. Price wise, they're fairly close. Based on my useage, Red Energy is about $100 per year cheaper than Origin. When I get settled in to Red Energy, the next step is to get a smart meter installed and that will remove the problem of the contract meter readers who don't like going off the bitumen on to rural properties. I could deal with estimated bills if the meter readers were honest about their reasons given for not accessing the property but they're not. It's another case of good service going to the pack when things get contracted out. When Energex (the primary supplier/wholesaler) employed their own people to read the meters they quite happily accessed the property for 30+ years without a problem. I think the roll out date here for smart meters ends in 2030, so sometime in the next couple of years I would be compelled to swap to a smart meter anyway.

[facthunter]

Do it .The system is designed for it.. I thought just about everybody had. Nev

[willedoo]

Getting a bit off topic, but on that subject of outsourcing tech support, a couple of companies I deal with outsource customer and tech support to the Phillipines and their support has always been good. I think one of them uses work from home staff as you can often hear village or urban noises in the background like roosters crowing, babies crying and motorbikes riding past.

[ClintonB]

I have used red for a long time now, all of the comparison people who ring up always come back with the same result when they check and agree that they have the best deal.

since 2008 I have only had ducted AC in the old house and the new one. Found less dust, less work than wood heating, and the house is even throughout, not boiling in the fire room and freeing everywhere else.

costs a lot less than bought firewood to run also.

[Marty_d]

4 hours ago, facthunter said:

Do it .The system is designed for it.. I thought just about everybody had. Nev

Not around here. We don't even have that many smart people, let alone meters.

[willedoo]

So far, Victoria is the only state that's achieved almost 100% roll out of smart meters.

Here's the state figures for smart meter roll out completion: Victoria 99%, W.A. 90%, Tasmania 78%, N.T. 50%, S.A. 46%, Qld. 42%, ACT 40%, NSW 39%.

 

I think there's a lot of factors in the mix. It's the retailers who are doing it, so depending how many customers they have and where they're located, it's a staged roll out. If the roll out becomes available in your district, it's free for the consumer. If you apply for one before that, I think there's a fee involved.

[willedoo]

Of those completion figures, I'd guess most of that is in the cities and larger regional areas.

[red750]

I've had a smart meter for a few years. I love it. I can log into my acccount with my supplier at any time, and get data like this.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Those Victorians must be smart 

 

😄

[facthunter]

Be quiet. We're full and it's a terrible Place..  I'm not even slightly tempted to move. Nev. 

[kgwilson]

If you have solar, smart meters are essential as standard meters are unable to deal with feed in tariffs. I am a VPP (virtual power plant) & buy sell electricity on the wholesale market. My monthly average buy price at the moment is 18.3 cents/kWh & my average FIT is 20.3c/kWh. I have a 18.64kWh battery & sell power to the grid usually from 5pm to 7pm when the price is high. This is all managed by my system provider as the spot price is checked every 5 minutes and my system is told what to do. It even curtails my solar production when the battery is full and the spot FIT goes negative so I do not pay for exporting to the grid.