Smart meters are increasingly being set up in newly built or any renovated homes all over Energy Australia's incumbent supply area.
The modern electricity smart meters allow for a retailer to implement 'time of use' charging. 'Time of use' charging isn't something new in NSW, the majority of consumers usually are charged a Peak, Off Peak and Shoulder fee by suppliers. Nevertheless the way of measuring and tracking is fairly crude.
The previous 'dumb' meter has a simple time switch to measure the consumers use across different periods during the day. The only way to read the meter, or change the time structure, is for an engineer to go out and re-configure it.
The modern smart meters permit the complete period of use to be configured remotely and for the meter to be read remotely. As a result even though the 'time of use' periods might be predetermined today, they might very easily be altered in the foreseeable future to more accurately reflect the costs received by suppliers to supply consumers with electricity.
The issue NSW consumers tend to be dealing with, could be the peak time period (highest prices) that Energy Australia are enforcing on these consumers is across the time of day whenever a they use, (particularly a family) is likely to be highest - typically 2pm to 8pm.
Consumers are generally less than happy about this as they think they're being struck with significant prices hikes, and some are. Energy Australia on the other hand suggest that 70% of consumers using smart meters will end up paying less for their electricity than those on a flat rate - demonstrating that bad news travels much faster than good.
Energy Australia has now permitted consumers to choose among a 'time of use' charging structure and also a 'flat rate' set of prices. This could be a good choice for Energy Australia - there's a clear need to get consumers onboard, after that improve the amount of information available about the benefits of smart meters.
The benefits being:
•Cheaper rates
•More accurate billing
•Improve energy efficiency
Very easy to say but a little trickier to deliver to buyers who are merely worried about affording their power expenses.
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