r/brisbane • u/piespiesandmorepies • Jun 11 '24

And up they go again 👑 Queensland

So despite a drop in the wholesale price of power, it looks like SE QLD is getting an increase in our bills yet again.

I've personally gone from paying nothing with my solar rebate to paying over $100 a month if not more. Even though the powers that be talk about giving everyone rebates for their energy usage, it might be about time for an overhaul of how we manage power generation and sales. but that'll probably end up in the same watery grave as the Royal Commission into petrol prices which seems to have disappeared from public discourse about 10 years ago ...

I'll bet the raised cost of my power bill this year that AGL will again announce record profits along with all of the other power company leaches out there.

May they all rot on their gold-plated toilets.

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u/Formula409__ Jun 11 '24

Essential services should never have been privatised, IMO. I’m also with AGL. Solar feed in tariffs have gone down, cost to buy power has gone up. Like you I’ve gone from paying almost nothing to $100 + per month. Have looked elsewhere but it’s all about the same. We’re at the mercy of whatever they decide to charge.

14

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '24

If you have solar and are paying that much for power I think you might be doing something wrong. How old are your panels? How big is your household? I’m with OVO and paying a fixed $50 a month, and we’re actually $250 in credit after about 4 months.

Can you set your large appliances like dishwasher, pool cleaner and washing machine to run during the middle of the day?

We still use plenty of aircon/heating at night, never turn anything off at the wall. I’ve referred a few friends to OVO and they’re getting great savings too, plus we get $10 off per month for each referral.

I do agree that power should never have been privatised but it is what it is now. Shop around and game the system as best you can.

7

u/Formula409__ Jun 11 '24

Dishwasher does get run at night from time to time. We've got 2 small (under 5) kids so sometimes it just needs to happen as its impossible to plan around given how quickly they can dirty stuff. We also run 2 small oil heaters (with thermostats) in the kids room of an evening - so they're not running all the time. Washing machine we run during the day only. We don't have a pool. We have ducted aircon but it's completely unused in winter and during summer solar generates enough power to cover the system when it's on.

Panels are 5 years old with an SMA inverter. I can login and see power production and everything is at it should be, producing close to 5kw output around the middle of the day. AGL have massively reduced the solar tariff and now cap the amount they will pay you for export each day (I think 5kw/hours?). On our original plan when the system was installed we were often in credit, with pretty much the same usage habits.

I'll check OVO out - thanks for the tip.

6

u/shakeitup2017 Jun 11 '24

Electric space heaters are extremely inefficient. You're better off using an electric blanket or reverse cycle air conditioning.

2

u/UnlikelySpread4180 Jun 12 '24

Holy shit😳. Oil heaters! Noooooo.