[glend (Glen)]

What I think I know, and it could be wrong. The electricty retailers are just professional sales and account support organisations and in some cases handle multiple products (like gas). There are a couple of large ones and one of these actually runs different electricity retailer operations out of the same call centre. The person you talk to at say Energy Australia might be sitting across the aisle from someone representing another retailer.

The electricity generators have nothing to do with sales and support of the retail customers. And then we have Ausgrid, and the other Grid providers who only look after the poles and wires.

All of these organisations will want (and achieve) a profit margin. Ths triple dipping is one of the reasons that prices stay high and get higher. The Grid people are notorious for being high cost operations, and in the past the state (at least NSW) paid for a gold standard network upgrade - which of course Ausgrid charges for and the cost is paid for by you (with the appropriate margin of course). None of these organisations are "Not for Profit" despite what Ausgrid might claim, they have to return a dividend to the state. The state is positioning Ausgrid for a privatisation sale (to fund things like road upgrade projects), the unions argue that this will increase costs to you, but the reality is that your costs will continue to rise regardless because they need money to pay for maintenance, their nice offices, all those trucks, the guys standing around, the next round of pay increases for these public sector workers, etc.

As to the money trail from your bill to them, I am not sure who gets what but the retailers are the collection point and then money get distributed to the generator and grid but probably flows through the State to them. I think a call to the NSW Energy Ombudsman's office might give you the answers your after.