For those families who really want to reduce their electricity expenditure, some retrofitting may be worth the effort but focusing on the use of more energy efficient products and developing habits of consumption that best suits your circumstances is where the best mileage should be made. I thought that it would not be unreasonable to assume that the price a family is expected to pay per kWh would have already been addressed within the marketplace as “par for the course”. This shouldn’t be a big expectation especially when 70% of the energy sold into the market is supplied by two government owned corporations. That is, wouldn’t one expect that a government would be looking after their own people? In this case I’m using the varying charges identified on bills that I have personally received on dwellings in Queensland. In the last 6 months we have paid as much as 28.8 cents per kWh and as low as 20.53 cents per kWh. At the moment we are paying 23.33 cents per kWh.
We could have stayed with the 20.33 cents per kWh purchase tariff however we elected to pay a little more for our electricity and receive a higher input tariff (FIT) as we export three to four times electricity than we consume. We went from receiving 54.5 cents per kWh to receiving 61 cents per kWh. This was in our best financial interest to do so. 
There seems to be so much that has to be known and juggled and negotiated to get the best price. Then there are other charges including the cost of reading the meter, which for us is 7 cents per day and the supply cost, which allegedly pays for the poles and wires, and in our case attracts a cost of 97 cents per day. Of course there’s GST to pay on each one of those costs which goes into state government coffers. >>>LEARN MORE>>>
There’s a big difference between 28.8 cents and 20.53 cents per kWh which is a little over 8 ¼ cents for each and every kWh purchased. I wouldn’t mind pocketing the 8 cents difference from every household on every kWh consumed in every Queensland residence and business on every day. How is it even possible that there can be that much variation, that is, more than 30% variation within a regulated industry and in fact within an industry where the major suppliers of electricity are government owned. In reality all corporations are businesses and businesses are in the business of making as much money as they possibly can. A government owned business is owned by someone or a group of people, ie. Shareholders. If you are simply a member of the public, you are not a shareholder. (The concept of Government owned businesses’ is an issue for someone else to address.)
Wikipedia advises that CS Energy is an Australian based electricity generating company owned by the government of Queensland with his head office located in Fortitude Valley Brisbane. The company’s generation portfolio comprises coal fired power stations and it employs more than 500 staff.
Wikipedia advises that Stanwell Corporation is also a Queensland government owned corporation and is the state’s biggest coal-fired electricity generator. They employ about 800 people.
A number of years ago we had a card put in our letterbox enticing us to change our electricity supplier with the offer of having our electricity bill reduced by 28%. (see picture 1) Alinta, is a private company that is owned by Chow Tai Fook Enterprises from Hong Kong and entered into a joint-venture with CS Energy in 2017 offering a discount of 28% to Queensland consumers.
Of course Alinta doesn’t produce electricity, it simply retails it, but for it to be able to offer a 28% discount on market price there must be enough “fat” in the deal for them to be able to honour the offer and still make a handsome profit. Government owned CS Energy and Stanwell Corporation supply about 70% of Queensland’s electricity.
On Stanwell’s site, https://www.stanwell.com/story/what-we-do/, it is claimed that “it’s Stanwell’s job right now to keep providing reliable electricity at prices that are affordable”. On CS Energy’s site, https://www.csenergy.com.au/news/class-action CS Energy states “Our number one priority, as always, is to safely deliver reliable and competitively-priced electricity to power our economy” – Greg Whyte from Legal firm Piper Alderman may not agree with either of those statements and is involved is a class action instigated for reason’s outlined on their websites.
“Greg Whyte head of Piper Alderman’s litigation team in Brisbane said, “This case is about abuse of market power. Stanwell and CS Energy have used their position to unlawfully manipulate the wholesale cost of electricity and that has driven up the prices paid by all Queensland businesses and consumers. It’s had a devastating effect on the Queensland economy. We are trying to stop that behaviour and recoup the losses that illegal conduct has caused. For businesses. For Queenslanders.”
“The claim alleges that Stanwell and CS Energy engaged in “bidding games” or trading strategies during the relevant period which artificially created scarcity of supply and spiked energy prices to the detriment of group members. This conduct is alleged to have been in contravention of section 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).”
More information is on the class action is available here https://www.qldenergyclassaction.com.au/.
Of course the outcome “is for the court” to decide but who would have thought that our access to a kWh of grid electricity in Queensland would drop from 28.8 cents per kWh to 20.53 cents and how can that even be commercially viable?
I would not have predicted that 6 months ago. >>>LEARN MORE>>>
Let’s wait and see what happens, but in the meantime, if you are paying big bucks on your electricity bills and haven’t negotiated a purchase price in recent times, consider picking up the phone and see what may now be available to you. It may well be worth the call.
John Lynn