Finding cheaper energy rates

Last week I helped a home find a better energy plan using their real consumption history. The exercise got me thinking about energy rates, which have been moving a bit.

I wanted to revisit the seedy underbelly of energy rates again and touch on the fundamentals we should all be thinking about. We can all save a dollar or two.

We can save a lot of money if we switch plans and providers more often

The home I worked with last week is now going to save roughly $500 on their energy bills over the next 12 months. Which was quoted by the energy provider and backed up by our calculations as well.

And, they are barely using their power, their average consumption of power per day is around 200 watts an hour. My home uses that amount of energy when I'm not even home.

So how can a home that consumes so little power be able to achieve such significant savings?

The answer is simply because they haven't checked their energy rates in over two years. When we don't keep on an eye on our energy rates, our providers go all in and take advantage of us. In this instance their energy provider had been increasing their energy rates without them noticing.

Though there can be more to the comparison of rates as well. There is enough variety of rates in the market that we should be playing to our strengths and not our weaknesses.

Back in 2022 energy rates sky rocketed and a few energy providers went under

Since 2022 things have calmed down a bit and energy rates on the market aren't fluctuating to the extremes that we had. In fact, overall energy rates are starting to decrease now, for example the Victorian Default Offer is projected to decrease for 2024 to 2025.

So, it stands to reason that cheaper energy rates should be out there in the market, and for some unlucky souls, they could be missing out on hundreds of dollars of savings by not taking a look.

Below is a breakdown of how the default offer is set based on the various components that make up the overall price of an energy rate. Wholesale prices in large have dropped quite a bit even as the network charges have continued to increase.

With wholesale pricing dropping, it can also be a good time to consider wholesale energy plans available from some energy providers.

Filtering all of the energy rates to calculate the best for a specific consumption pattern

Sometimes finding the best plan for a home isn't about hunting down what seems like the lowest rate.

Take my home for example. My consumption pattern is totally different from the home I helped last week. I work from home and have a fairly steady consumption pattern throughout the day.

The home I worked with had three adults working in the city during work hours every weekday, so naturally their consumption spikes in the evenings when everyone gets home. It might sound obvious but day in and day out it can be hard to nail down the actual consumption pattern of a home without seeing it explicitly outlined in the data.

The home in question was also on a pretty rough time-of-use plan. I've seen a lot of homes jump onto time-of-use rates because they sound great, and "surely we can just consume less energy from 5pm to 9pm, how hard can it be". For most homes this will be tough without going in with a solid game plan of how to shift consumption from evenings to the afternoons.

For others, they're paying way more than they need to, and there is easier long-hanging fruit.

Think about it this way: If you're home during the day and can run your washing machine, dishwasher, and other energy-hungry appliances during off-peak times, you could save heaps. But if you're like the example home then most of your energy use happens during peak evening rates, you might be better off with a flat rate.

How you can connect your consumption and find the best energy rate

By signing up to SolvingZero you can link the consumption history of your home from your smart meter to your own personal dashboard. From there, we can use that consumption history to figure out what energy plan would be best for you.

We have access to every energy plan out there, all 13,000, so we can compare your home against every single plan available to you. Also, we can see how much solar a home exports to the grid, so if you have solar we can also compare the best solar plans.

If that sounds interesting, then reach out to me and let me know you'd like to have us analyse your energy and find your best plan.

A heads up beforehand, we're trying to keep the lights on at the moment, so if we do find you $100 or more in savings for a full year, I'd ask for $25 to help cover our costs of running the analysis. So you'll save $75 at the very least, most likely more. We did just find a home $500 in savings.

If you would like to find the best energy rate for your home with or without solar, then email me back, and we can get started.