According to Bloomberg, AGL is close to approving A$1 billion of wind- and gas-fired electricity generation projects this year to increase its investments in green electricity.
Tip of the hat to AGL!
Switchwise.com.au Blog
Archive for February, 2009
Origin switches on new SA power plant
Thursday, February 26th, 2009Origin Energy has completed its relatively green (gas-powered), electricity generation facility on Torrens Island in South Australia. The new facility will add more capacity to the SA electricity grid, equivalent to that required to power around fifty thousand homes.
The facility was built primarily to help meet demand during summer peak periods – high temperature days when we all switch on our air-conditioning. Many SA households lost power during January’s heatwave as the electricity grid could not cope with the demand.
AGL posts solid results
Thursday, February 26th, 2009AGL announced a $1.65 billion half-year profit – sounds like a great result, doesn’t it? However, this impressive figure was due primarily to profits from asset sales. AGL’s underlying profit, excluding these one-off gains, rose by 5 per cent to $192.5 million. A solid rather than impressive result that came in below analysts’ expectations.
From a consumer perspective, the most surprising news concerned AGL’s retail business, which sells electricity and gas to consumers and businesses. The retail division managed to improve its profits (EBIT) by 8 per cent, due to higher gas consumption over winter as well as price increases.
Switchwise analysis shows that AGL is one of the more expensive suppliers from which consumers can buy their electricity and gas supplies. It appears that many consumers either aren’t terribly price-sensitive or they don’t know that they have the option to choose from many, cheaper, alternative suppliers. It’s time to put on your skates and compare energy prices offered by other energy companies!
