Cost of Electricity

[Exfso (Peter)]

I just got my latest quarterly power bill, and I thank God I have solar. Based on my previous useage if I did not have solar given AGL's current rates, my power bill would have been a bees whisker under $700.00. That is outrageous considering 2 years ago for the same period I would have only been billed around $400.00 I used to use on average 21kwh per day and over summer around 25kwh.
Now with solar, I am getting money paid back to me, that is a turn up for the books.

[PCH (Paul)]

Peter,

hey that's pretty cool. What's the rebate they give you per kWh over there?

Here, I think it's been reduced to a measly 7c a unit.

If it costs 21c a unit (it's a bit more, but I just want to use that figure to make the sums easy !), does that mean that if I use one unit while I'm at home during the evening, say - costing 21c, I have to produce 3 units during the day (3 x 7c =21c) to break exactly even on the bill?

Is it as simple as that or am I missing something from the equation?

Cheers ,

[Tandum (Robin)]

Ours are regularly around the $900/quarter mark. I got a wireless monitor that told me the meters where reading 30% high, but of course when they tested the meters it was: nothing wrong wit em. Now I hear they are changing tariffs so depending on when you use it will dictate the price. So up at 4am for breakfast and dinner around 10pm I suppose

[Exfso (Peter)]

Hi Paul, it is a tad more complicated than that. It used to be 44c/kw exported back into the supply, but the Govt in their infinite wisdom decided to do away with that figure here and now it is 16c/Kw exported back. However if one had already been connected to the scheme before they dropped back the feedin tariff, they stayed on the old rate, and I believe it is valid until the mid 2020's here in SA. I get an extra 8c/kw because I am with AGL, so for every Kw I feed back into the grid I get 52c back. However for every Kw I use I get charged at an increasing rate starting from 28c/kwh for the first 300kwh used then around 32c/kwh for the next 900kwh used and so on up to around 38c/kwh for the really big user.
The figures you used should read not produced, but exported, dont forget you are still using power when the sun is up and the panels are generating, and the house takes the power from the panels, and what is left is exported back into the grid,or if you use more than is being generated, you then import power from the grid, so based on your example you would need to export 3kw back into the grid which means your panels may have to produce up to double that taking into account your usage during the hours of solar generation. Other factors come into play as well, eg clouds, weather, time of year, trees, house orientation, roof pitch etc. I was told by my installer that here in Adelaide we get on average 7.1hrs of sunlight a day over the year, that is capable of producing power, whether there are clouds etc around, this can vary, but it is the average here at least. As an example, I have a 4.5kw setup, and in the peak during the summer I generated 32kw on a cloudless cooler day, it dropped back a few percent on the really hot days. Now with the sun further north I am lucky to produce 20kw on a clear day. This will probably drop back to around 15kw by mid winter on a clear day. There were a few days when the weather was particularly overcast that I did not export any power into the grid in fact the panels were lucky if they generated 2-3kw total during the day.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Holy cow people. What appliances are you using to cause such a large bill??
Mine for the last quarter was $173.
And with a little bit of diligence on my part, I'm sure I can get it below that next quarter.

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

Holy cow people. What appliances are you using to cause such a large bill??
Mine for the last quarter was $173.
And with a little bit of diligence on my part, I'm sure I can get it below that next quarter.

He's testing out all those bloody light boxes!!!

[Exfso (Peter)]

JJ you dont live in Adelaide, we get reamed every which way here. As I said before, my daily consumption is around 20kwh, to get a bill that small here, you would have to use less than 5kwh a day, dont know too many people who do that and live in a place full time. One of my mates lives on his own and runs bugger all at home, he still uses 8 kwh per day. I have actually cut back on my usage in the last few years and the prices have doubled. Last year alone it went up something like 30% from memory. Not sure what you guys pay per Kwh of usage, but I will bet it is no where near what we fork out. People are defaulting everywhere in Adelaide, they just cannot pay their power/utility bills and the greedy power companies keep asking for more price increases, and the stupid powers let them have it.
The woman who lives next door to me has 7 kids, single Mother, previous power bill was over $600 and that was before the latest price hikes, I have no idea how she makes it, well I do, but dont reckon I can mention it here Now we have to contend with this damn carbon tax that will send more over the edge, but I wont start the ball rolling on that hot potato. Power is tipped to rise markedly as a result of that little gem, I reckon they should re-name Australia, TITANIC, very apt considering this year/month is the 100th anniversary of that tragedy.
But I digress, as I said at the start of this thread, thank god for solar otherwise I would be in deep doodoo...

[Barrykgerdes]

If you want electric power you need to pay for it. My power at the SPSP will cost $1 per KWh. For that we get TV, internet, power for computers, telescopes etc (all night) where there is no mains power.

Barry

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Terrible state of affairs I know and when we consider that 1.3 Billion people on Earth have NO power at all...hurumph! we should be complaining, it's a travesty I say...

Mike

[swannies1983 (Dan)]

Same here. Latest bill is $680 for the quarter. That's up about $70-$100 more than normal. Usage was up a tad, but that's to be expected given my wife is pregnant and we have a two year old. Plus the summer rate on top. My local chicken shop has stopped selling chickens. Higher electricity prices are partly to blame.

[Paul Haese]

Not sure about others, but we are pretty miserly with our power usage. For the last couple of years we averaged out at $350 per quarter on the power bill. We have some general rules. No downlights are to be used regularly. When we walk out of a room we turn off the lights. Most applicances are turned off at night to prevent power usage. And; we have solar panels. Since installation we received our first credit a month or so ago and it was for $220. Power has gone up here but usage needs to be monitored to prevent costs blowing out. Many people I suspect are quite wasteful with power. Yes the prices are being hiked up a little too much but being careful with usage makes a big difference. At this rate the initial cost of the PEV system should be paid off in 5 years and after that it is money for jam.

[Peter.M]

Originally Posted by swannies1983

My local chicken shop has stopped selling chickens. Higher electricity prices are partly to blame.

Can I ask what a chicken shop does if they dont sell chickens? Was that their plan when they became under financial stress?

[CDKPhil]

You only need to blame our state Governments for privatising the power companies.
The less power that is used the more expensive the power will become.

We are all told you need to reduce your carbon footprint, put in energy saver globes, turn off the lights, wash in cold water ect. Most people are doing this and the power companies don't like it.
Yes it is great that we are using less power and cutting back carbon emissions, but we will pay higher and higher prices because of privatisation. If the utilities were run by Government as they once were, they only need to make enough money to cover costs, research and development and infrastructure. They do not need to pay greedy share holders dividends or make record profits every year.

Speaking of greedy share holders might be worth buying shares in a candle manufacturing company.

Cheers
Phil

[traveller (Bo)]

I am puzzled by the high bills as well. 20kwh per day is quite a lot. Is your hotwater electric Peter? Would a gas boosted solar HWS help? Even if you are home all day and run TV, computers, kettles, ovens etc, there are still many things you can do to save electricity
Bo

[swannies1983 (Dan)]

Originally Posted by Peter.M

Can I ask what a chicken shop does if they dont sell chickens? Was that their plan when they became under financial stress?

Sorry, I should have clarified. I meant a chicken take-away shop. They sell a wide range of other food but chickens are no more. The price they pay for chickens would be going up also, which meant they would have to charge $18 for a chicken. Yeah, they are big chickens but no-one is going to spend that much when you can get much cheaper chickens next door at Woolworths.

Their power bill went up well over $500 for the quarter. Cooking chickens and the warmer to keep the chickens hot are big power users. Plus the demand for his chickens wasn't that high (around 30-40 chickens per week).

[The_bluester (Paul)]

We have two adults and a child home during the day and have reverse cycle heating at one end of the house and a wood heater at the other, our wintr bill has hovered around $1000 for years. Last year between the mild winter and conscious work to save power we dropped our consumption markedly, the bill was just under $1000!

We have gone even further over the warmer months and have kill switches for standby power on everything we can do so for, same deal, significant use age reduction in order to stand still bill wise.

[swannies1983 (Dan)]

I have argued with with my wife for using the dryer regularly, even in summer , but I can only say so much to a pregnant mum .

Heaters are another thing. I just say wear more clothes or bring in the blanket from the bedroom. Again, try telling that to someone who's pregnant with a toddler.

Hot water service is electric but it has an off-peak setting. I always set the timer of our dishwasher to run after midnight. I use cold water when washing clothes and I very, very rarely use the dryer.

[jenchris (Jennifer)]

Well my quarterly is about $230 steady and my power is dropping slowly as I reassess power usage. I drop it to keep the total the same.
I no longer use AC or Heat pump.
Most of my lighting is either LED (downlights have been replaced)
or compact flouro (which I hate). Cooking is Gas
I'm not concerned really as I shall retrim until I'm using a head torch for seeing and an ipod for entertainment if necessary.
I have my PC on all day - water is electric. I have no dishwasher or clothes dryer.

[swannies1983 (Dan)]

Just had a look at the last two bills

Latest: $684 with average 24kWh usage per day
Previous: $493 with average 22kWh usage per day

All previous bills around the $500 mark. It will be interesting to see the next bill given no summer rates.

Wife home 4.5 days a week. Electric hot water service (hopefully replaced with gas in not so distant future), electric stove/oven and also have a second fridge for wife's cake business.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

I suppose we pretty much have to suck it up to a degree. We are rural so gas heating is out of the qustion (Electric would be cheaper than bottled gas!) have just installed solar hot water with a direct gas booster after waiting ten years for the old gas storage unit to fail and justify the change over. We have electric cooking for the same cost reasons (Although we might need to look into that and reasess between bottled gas and electric) and have two adults (My wife and I share a property with my mother) at home all day who both spend much of the day working on computers.

Without seriously freezing I am not sure there is much we can do to markedly reduce winter consumption, about the only string we have in the bow this year is to install an air transfer kit to move heat from the wood heated end (We have a pretty good wood supply on the place) to the reverse cycle end, but a decent one is liable to cost around a thousand and will take a couple of years to pay itself back in reduced power consumption.