7 Important Facts When Switching Electricity Retailer

OK so you are looking for a better electricity deal? So what do you really NEED TO KNOW to fully understand an electricity retailer's offer?

To make the best and correct choice for your home, you will need to make an educated decision based on certain facts.

So let us look in detail at what these 7 important facts are:

1. How are you going to be charged for the electricity you use, meaning is the tariff a flat rate, a tiered rate or a Time Of Use TOU rate. Certain tariff types will work better for some homes dependent on when the power is used and the amount of power used.
2. What are you going to be charged for the electricity you use in cents?
3. What is the % of discount OFF the usage for paying on time POT? Is the retailer starting with the same network base price? Is there a penalty for paying late other than the loss of the POT discount?
4. Is there a credit for switching to a market offer such as a two year agreement? Some retailers offer a $100 credit for a two year agreement.
5. What are you going to be charged for the daily service costs?
6. Are there any additional transaction fees, such a direct debit or credit card fees.
7. Are there any other fees such as paper bill fees?

Knowing the above 7 important facts when comparing electricity retailer's offers, will allow you to make an educated decision.

We would further recommend you get the electricity retailer to send you an example bill. Electricity bills differ greatly in Australia, due to a lack of regulation and billing format.

Some electricity bills are simply very difficult for anyone to understand! Even we have issues and disturbingly in some cases so does the electricity retailer's customer support desk!

An electricity bill with no total kWhs or total days on the bill, is surely a good start for a failing electricity billing system. And an electricity bill with twenty-four lines of data is not an easy read either, or one with coding that relates to nothing!

Electricity billing issues such as this are common place, all often discovered during our ELECTRICITY METERING AND BILLING SERVICE.

Taking note of the above 7 important facts when comparing electricity retailer's offer, will help you to make the best choice.

Not forgetting importantly, most electricity retailer's will pay off the other's early termination charges ETC, to get you on board.

Any electricity retailer switch will always involve a special meter read, which at the time of writing costs around $55 in NSW.

This blog post brought to you by Aussie Home Energy, a major player in the HOME ELECTRICITY SAVING SERVICE industry in Australia.

Are All Time Of Use Electricity Tariffs The Same?

The answer is NO. Differences are the number of hours offered on each tariff rate be it peak, shoulder and off-peak. And of course, the cost per tariff.

So let us take a look at two different TOU electricity retailers offers. Whilst electricity retailer's in one electricity distribution area may offer small changes to the costs, based on tariff rates, the biggest changes occur when one compares rates offered in one electricity distribution area to another.

For this exercise we are comparing an offer in the Essential Energy area, to an offer in the Ausgrid distribution area.

With any TOU plan, the hours in the week [a total of 168] are charged at different rates based on demand. For the actual times these tariffs are in force, please see our TOU TABLES.

Time Of Use Differences Based On Distribution Area

As you can easily see there are big differences in the % of total hours per week per tariff type. This can make the TOU more or less suitable, when it comes to reducing electricity costs.

Some of the differences in the TOU plans offered are:

• One distribution area has peak and shoulder charged at the same rate
• Both TOU offers have completely different tariff times and rates

It is therefore essential to know at what time of day you are going to be using or not using electricity and how much. Once you have a better idea of this electricity usage in your home, you will be in a better position to know if the TOU will in fact save you on electricity costs.

An easy solution to see the differences in TOU plans, along with comparing a TOU to a flat rate or block rate, is to install ELECTRICITY MONITORING SOFTWARE with the capability of electricity tariff comparison.

See our blog post HERE for more on the difference is costs.
 
This blog post and podcast brought to you by Aussie Home Energy, a major player in the HOME ELECTRICITY SAVING SERVICE industry in Australia.