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Posts Tagged ‘nsw electricity’

AGL reports flat underlying profit

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

AGL Energy today reported a flat Underlying Profit of $431.1 million for the year ended 30 June 2011, up only by half a per cent over the previous financial year.

AGL said that the result was flat due to extreme hot weather events in eastern and southern Australia in February, which effectively reduced profit by $30-$35 million, as well as softer demand for electricity from its Loy Yang A power station in Victoria’s LaTrobe Valley.

AGL’s Retail Energy business seemed to perform strongly with a 17 per cent increase in EBIT to $373 million, due mainly to improvements in gross margin on mass market customers resulting from a combination of electricity and gas price (tariff) increases in all states and a net increase in customer numbers of 52,000. AGL’s total customer accounts increased by 1.6 per cent to 3.29 million.

AGL, having lost out to Origin Energy and TRUenergy in the purchase of retail energy assets as part of the NSW electricity privatisation process that completed in March this year, has had to rely on an organic growth strategy in New South Wales to grow its customer base. AGL seemed content with the start it had made in NSW adding 96,000 new electricity customers in the six months to 30 June 2011.

AGL also noted the high degree of competition in energy retail markets and that the introduction of the new Australian Consumer Law on 1 January 2011 that limited the hours of operation of door-to-door sales had appeared to have had no impact on the level of door knocking activity.

AGL claimed its churn rate of 19 per cent is below the industry average, reflecting improvements made in customer service. Origin also reported yesterday a very similar level of customer churn.

You can read AGL’s full earnings release on their website.

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Great new NSW electricity deals now available

Monday, August 15th, 2011

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.

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O’Farrell Government won’t rule out reversing NSW electricity asset sales

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

The newly elected O’Farrell Government has announced its intention to hold a judicial inquiry into the controversial $5 billion NSW electricity privatisation programme. Mr O’Farrell intends to start the inquiry within one month of taking office and wants the judicial panel to examine whether or not the asset sale conducted by the previous Labor Government was flawed and/or unlawful.

According to newspaper reports, Mr O’Farrell has not ruled out the possibility of reversing the sales of these retail assets despite the fact that such a decision would likely result in the Government having to cough up hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to TRUenergy and Origin Energy. In addition it would likely throw the energy market into chaos not to mention harm the chances of any future asset privatisations in the Australian market.

On 1st March 2011 the sale of Energy Australia’s retail business to TRUenergy and the sale of Integral Energy’s and Country Energy’s retail businesses to Origin Energy was completed. Origin Energy paid $3 billion for these retail assets as well as the electricity trading rights for Eraring Energy. TRUenergy paid $2 billion for EnergyAustralia and the trading rights for Delta West, as well as access to three power station development sites.

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