Announcing its first-half financial results in Hong Kong on Monday, CLP Holdings, the owner of Australia’s third largest energy supplier TRUenergy, reportedly said that contrary to speculation it had gained rather than lost customers in its recently acquired New South Wales energy retailing business, Energy Australia.
According to The Australian newspaper, Andrew Brandler, CEO of CLP, said that Energy Australia had withstood AGL’s attempts to poach its customers in the greater Sydney metropolitan area. AGL earlier this year announced its intention to aggressively acquire customers in NSW following its failure to acquire at a reasonable price one of the three NSW electricity suppliers privatised by the NSW Government late last year.
We have heard reports of very aggressive door-to-door sales activity in NSW over the last six months by several electricity providers, despite a slight reduction in the permitted door-knocking hours following the introduction of the new Australian Consumer Law earlier this year. The real question is whether Energy Australia’s success in “retaining” customers is due to aggressive discounting to “save” customers poached by other retailers such as AGL or whether Energy Australia has itself been aggressively door-knocking to acquire new customers to replace the ones it lost to other retailers.
As discussed in our post earlier this week, Australian Power & Gas, Dodo Power & Gas and Red Energy have all launched very attractive new electricity offers in New South Wales over the last few months. It will be exciting to watch what transpires over the coming year in NSW.
Following AGL’s launch of aggressive energy deals a couple of months ago backed by a high-profile NSW TV campaign, competitive activity has now taken another step-up in the New South Wales retail electricity market with Dodo Power and Gas entering into the fray last week. Dodo, a well known brand in the broadband and mobile markets, launched a range of electricity offers in Victoria late last year and is now building up its presence in other states.
Dodo Power & Gas has entered the NSW market aggressively with base rates below the current regulated tariffs combined with a market-leading pay-on-time discount. Dodo is offering the following two electricity plans at launch:
- No term contract with 5 per cent pay-on-time discount on your usage; and
- 12 month contract with 10 per cent pay-on-time discount on your usage.
Bottom line is that if you are willing to commit for 12 months you can double your discount.
Over the past few weeks both Red Energy and Australian Power and Gas have launched competitive new NSW electricity offers. Red Energy has enhanced its Energy Bonus Saver offer – a 2 year contract with 5 per cent pay-on-time discount – with the addition of a $75 sign-up bonus credited to your first bill. Australian Power & Gas recently launched a new product called Smart Saver 8, which is a 3 year contract that offers an 8 per cent pay-on-time-discount on your electricity usage charges.
To determine whether one of these offers might provide a better deal on your power bills please be sure to perform an energy comparison on our main site and see how much you might save if you switch power suppliers.
Apparently the Clean Energy Council (CEC) and the Victorian Government Department of Primary Industries (DPI) met this week to discuss the existing Victorian Premium Solar Feed-in Tariff regime. It has been reported that the DPI mentioned that the current feed-in tariff regime would be phased out in the near future for new customers wishing to connect to the electricity grid.
The current premium feed-in tariff offers Victorian residents with small-scale (up to 5 kW in size) solar photo-voltaic (PV) systems a minimum credit of at least 60 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) for any excess electricity they feed back into the grid. All electricity retailers with more than 5,000 Victorian customers must offer the premium feed-in tariff for solar. When the premium feed-in tariff regime was established it was limited to a total capacity of 100 megawatts of solar power across the state and once this limit is reached, new customers connecting solar to the grid may no longer be eligible to be paid the premium rate for feeding in to the grid. However, those Victorians who are already receiving the premium feed-in tariff will be entitled to continue to receive the premium rate until 2024 even if the scheme is closed to new customers.
Apparently the 100 megawatt limit is expected to be reached soon (if not already) and the DPI is expected to announce a replacement interim scheme for new customers connecting to the grid. Whilst any new scheme is likely to be similar it is expected that the premium rate will be cut significantly as has occurred in other states. For example, the NSW Government slashed its feed-in tariff from 60 cents to 20 cents per kWh effective from 29 April 2011.
If you wish to learn more about solar feed-in tariffs in Victoria please refer to the FAQs on the Department of Primary Industries’ website.
