Recently AGL energy costs had a big 30%+ price hike. I might have worn it, if they hadn’t had a similar hike the preceding year as well. As it was I looked around and switched to Tango (a Victorian company), whose prices were much better.
However I suspect their prices were as for their core Victorian customer base, and they just sent a 65% price hike to match or exceed AGL’s prices! Needless to say, time for another switch.
This time I’m trying Amber (it came down to them or Red energy). Their pricing model is so different that I’m having to rethink our daily routines, and also ponder home automation changes.
They vary their prices hour by hour, day by day. They provide an API you can hook into your home automation. However they also provide a quick lookup in their app to their hourly and forecast rates, and I’m likely to use that more, rather than make the home automation more dependent on internet.
According to their forecasts most of the 2pm-8pm peak time of most providers doesn’t see heavy usage – only 19:00-21:00 really. So if I just tweak home automation to consider that the peak period (but with harsher adjustments) it should work out.
And it suggests washing 11:00-13:00 (peak solar input vs usage I guess).