State becomes first to ban retail energy "loyalty tax," in bid to save customers hundreds of dollars a year

https://reneweconomy.com.au/state-becomes-first-to-ban-retail-energy-loyalty-tax-in-bid-to-save-customers-hundreds-of-dollars-a-year/

14 points · 5 comments · view on lemmy.world

5 Comments

vividspecter@aussie.zone · 9 pts · 42d

The state being Victoria, to preclude the clickbaity headline. Good news in any case and hopefully it spreads to other states.

Taleya@aussie.zone · 7 pts · 42d

An example put forward by Choice is customers receiving ‘Better Offer’ or ‘Best Offer’ messages that refer to a plan with the same name as their existing plan, but with different prices – leading customers to believe they are already on the best plan, and potentially missing out on savings as a result.

that's straight out fucking fraud

Nath@aussie.zone · 4 pts · 42d (2 replies)

Around 20 years ago, the WA state government introduced a gas reserve. It has been reinforced multiple times since then by premiers on both sides of government. Short version: 15% of offshore gas and 20% onshore is reserved for WA before whoever is extracting it is permitted to sell it outside the state.

I think WA is doing alright, here's an extract from our energy bill (family of four) to compare:

Your average daily usage 15.7778 units
Your average daily cost $6.27 per day

vividspecter@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 42d (1 reply)

A good idea then and will remain so for a while, but I suspect gas will be close to irrelevant for the local electricity market within a decade. Hopefully WA starts pushing hard on the renewable transition as they have been a bit of a laggard historically, but I get the impression they are starting to ramp up.

On your bill example, the per kwh and supply charge would be more comparable, although I get that time of use etc can complicate things.

Nath@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 42d

There's a lot of domestic solar in WA, same as most of Australia, I guess. There isn't a lot of sun at night, though. There are a few places like Albany on the south coast that are almost 100% renewable (wind farms).

We still have some coal in the mix, but I'm not an expert/couldn't tell you how much.

We don't have peak/off-peak prices. That's the rate. I remember being pleasantly surprised because our bill halved coming to Perth from Melbourne.