Watchdog Confirms Energy Switchers Can Save 100’s!

A report released this week by the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) delivers good news for households in most states and supports our view at the Fiftyup Club that comparing/switching can save you hundreds of dollars a year on your energy costs.

Energy customers pay different prices depending on where they live, how much network infrastructure is required to supply energy to them, how much competition there is between retailers in their area, what offer they are on, and whether they are eligible for a concession or rebate to offset the cost.

The report looked at the states that are part of the National Electricity Market (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT) but did not cover energy affordability for customers in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

While Tasmanian households are paying more for their electricity (when calculated using the same usage rate) than households in New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT (and a similar amount to Queensland), South Australian households are actually paying about 11 per cent more than Tasmanians and Queenslanders, even after two successive years of price falls of 3 and 4 per cent respectively.

Low income households in the ACT ($1533) and Victoria ($1316) continue to spend the most on their annual gas bills, where gas is both relatively prevalent and a popular fuel for heating during cool to cold winters. Unlike the ACT where bills are comparable to recent years, Victorian households spent 9.2 per cent more than the previous year.

New South Wales households enjoyed the largest fall in their annual gas bills (8.5 per cent), with an annual bill of around $845 (with only Queensland lower at $733 where heating demand is much lower).

Energy charges in Victoria are around 20 per cent cheaper than in New South Wales (the next cheapest) and about 40 per cent cheaper than Queensland and South Australia, where prices are similarly the highest.

Each state and territory government offers an energy concession to eligible households and as the report says, concessions can significantly improve energy affordability.

The potential savings vary in each jurisdiction and depend on how the concession is applied, but could be in the order of several hundred dollars a year for each fuel (for example a $484 concession for electricity for Tasmania households, a new $100 concession for gas in New South Wales to go with the existing $250 electricity concession and $215 across both fuels in South Australia).

For more information visit the Energy Made Easy website (www.energymadeeasy.gov.au) to check the generally available offers in your area.

Meanwhile, the dust hasn’t settled (pun intended) following the state-wide blackout in South Australia on September 28.

A report released this week by the Bureau of Meteorology has found that a supercell thunderstorm and 7 tornadoes with wind gusts of up to 260km/h destroyed major transmission lines in the state’s north, triggered the blackout.

Evidence collected by the BOM has confirmed that the F2 Wilmington tornado cut a direct path across the Davenport – Belalie/Davenport – Mt Lock transmission lines, destroying five transmission towers.

The report also found that the F2 Blyth tornado was in the vicinity of the Brinkworth – Templars West transmission line at the time two transmission towers were destroyed.

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