Energy Price Comparison – July 2017
July 11, 2017
Why We Created This Energy Price Comparison?
As the NSW 60c Feed in Tariff began to wind up in late 2016, there was always going to be a huge fight between the energy companies as to who could grab the most consumers and lock them in… As sad as it sounds, I stood back frustratingly observing the ongoing energy retailer marketing, designed to draw in unsuspecting and vulnerable consumers into 24 month lock-in energy supply contracts. I felt like a very small fish in a large ocean in terms of what I could do about educating both my customers, and the general public on what was available….
Finally in July 2017, all of the media attention around electricity price rises, home energy storage, feed in tariffs topped by the announcement of the worlds largest utility scale battery storage project and the constant conversations my staff and I were having with confused home owners – I decided that although I lack the multi-million dollar marketing budgets to share my findings in the mass media… It was time that we bit the bullet and did some deep diving past the marketing spiels and onto the energy price fact sheets of different companies to develop a side-by-side comparison chart that I could share openly with all of our customers, and the public via the World Wide Web to hopefully save people time and money, but most importantly educate people on what to look out for and how plans can differ between retailers quite dramatically.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
The Assumptions I Made
Of course, every home is different – so this particular exercise would be extremely difficult to conduct and cover ALL bases… But since our business is based in Coffs Harbour (Essential Energy Distribution Region) we selected this region for our comparisons.
This phase 1 comparison is residential only, and because we are a supplier of solar power systems – we assumed that if a feed in tariff was applicable. Most retailers seem to quote their feed in tariff for systems up to a maximum of 10kW.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
The Results
The energy companies I looked at were: Origin Energy, Energy Locals, Enova, Powershop, Alinta Energy and Red Energy… We will endeavour to continually update these results as we review more companies so make sure you leave your comments down below if you get any value out of it!
Quick Summary of Highest and Lowest
- Highest feed in tariff: Enova @ 16c/kWh (inc GST)
- Lowest feed in tariff: Alinta energy @ 6.60c/kWh (inc GST)
- Highest All Usage (Single Rate): Enova & AGL @ 31.9c/kWh (inc GST)
- Lowest All Usage (Single Rate): Energy Locals @ 25.3c/kWh (inc GST)
- Highest All Usage Supply Charge: Alinta Energy @ $163.75 – 90 days supply (inc GST)
- Lowest All Usage Supply Charge: Red Energy @ $127.45 – 90 days supply (inc GST)
- Highest controlled load 1 charge: Powershop @ 19.14c/kWh (inc GST)
- Lowest controlled load 1 charge: Red Energy @ 14.70c/kWh (inc GST)
- Highest controlled load 2 charge: Enova & AGL @ 24.2c/kWh (inc GST)
- Lowest controlled load 2 charge: Energy Locals @ 19.8c/kWh (inc GST)
As you can see – there is not one clear winner or loser and values change quite a lot! See the table below for detailed side-by-side comparison.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”1631″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image”][vc_column_text]
My Personal Recommendations
So, after reviewing the data I collated the major thing that stood out to me was the fact that high feed in tariffs do not mean a better deal… Enova’s 16c/kWh feed in tariff in theory sounds great – but their Time of use tariffs were more than 10c/kWh more expensive than the cheapest TOU tariffs from Energy Locals (who offer around 12.9c/kWh feed in tariff… A mere 3.1c/kWh less than Enova’s class leading Feed in Tariff)…
Who knows what the future may hold… But I am now in the process of changing over to Energy Locals for both my home and business plans (a second review for small business plans will go here shortly!)
Not only are their values great… Their rates are great too, and they are big supporters of shaking up the traditional energy grid which I like…. I had actually been speaking with Energy Locals for many months about partnering with them but I was not sure their rates were competitive enough for me to recommend to my customers…
With the increases from other energy retailers, and Energy Locals decrease in July 2017… I can now gladly recommend Energy Locals knowing that anybody I recommend will get a fair deal!
Important Note: All of the views expressed in this article are strictly my personal views and based on information I personally collected and analysed – I have taken as much care as possible to ensure it’s accuracy at the time I published this post, however I am sure many retailers will offer more competitive rates if you push them and poke them.. But even so, I stick by recommendations.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
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