Latest – Changing to a new electricity provider (2023) >>>
The Journey Begins
In 2007 we were belting through over 5000 kWh of electricity each three month billing period. As the cost of electricity increased, the cost of maintaining this level of consumption was unsustainable for our family.
At the time, we were using:
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- 5750 kwh of electricity per quarter;
- at the rate of 63 kwh per day.
For the use of this electricity we paid:
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- $695.00 for the three month Spring period (Sept / Oct / Nov);
- at the rate of 12c per kwh;
- or $7.60 per day.
Then the cost of electricity began to skyrocket – if we continued to consume energy at this rate we would soon be paying over $1000 per quarter for our electricity.
In fact 12c/kWh quickly became 25c/kWh, and in 2023 rose to 34c/kWh. If we were still using 5750 kWh of grid electricity in 2023 we would have been paying $1955 per quarter ($650/month) or $7820 a year..
Consumption Down, Costs Up
In an effort to balance our household energy budget we began reducing our energy consumption – we all took shorter showers (well, most of us), reduced washing machine cycles, returned unused parts of our home to darkness in the evenings, and wore more warm clothes on cold days rather than using heating.
While this certainly reduced our electricity consumption, it didn’t save us any money – the electricity supplier simply increased the unit cost. The more we reduced our consumption, the more the unit cost increased. The electricity company was looking after its bottom line, and maintaining its income stream.
We felt very much trapped, with no control over the costs of our daily energy supply. We were part of a captive market, with our expenses very much determined and controlled by the electricity company and their accounting departments’ profit targets.
We had to take more drastic action to reduce our dependence on grid electricity, and the associated costs.
This site provides a diary summary of our efforts to address this issue over the past few years….
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The Big Picture – Finite Reserves At the rate we are burning through fossil fuels, one day it will all be gone. The lot. No more left to dig up. |
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2023 – Changing our Grid Supplier The addition of an EV to our list of appliances powered by electricity has seen us change to a new energy supplier – one with an off-peak EV charging plan. And there are considerable savings. |
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Well, this isn’t going to save on the cost of electricity, but it is going to save a motza on the alternative fossil fuel energy being consumed for our daily transport. And we might even help save the environment! |
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We are all using less electricity – which can only mean one thing – the electricity companies will increase their rates to keep their bottom line looking healthy for shareholders and investors. The less you use, the more you pay! |
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2022 – Is a battery an option? If you have enough ‘spare’ solar output, you can install a battery to store excess solar-generated electricity for use when the sun isn’t shining. |
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Even with a solar heating panel, our hot water storage system was costing us a fortune, even when we weren’t using it! And when we were using it we were running out of hot water. So we switched to instantaneous gas heating for our hot water. |
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Always looking after their bottom line, the electricity suppliers bumped up the cost of energy to compensate for our further-reduced consumption. Again. |
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We reduced consumption, so suppliers increased the cost of the energy we were using. Our next step was to install solar panels to generate our own electricity and reduce our dependence on electricity from the grid. |
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2007 – 2009: Reducing Consumption Our first step to save money on energy costs was to use less energy – but the energy retailers were on to this! |
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