Our energy prices are changing

We’ll send you an email about your price change at least five business days before it happens (or 10 business days before if you’re in Queensland). In Victoria, it’ll include a comparison of your new and existing rates, and an estimate of how much it’ll increase your costs, based on your past usage.

If you don’t see it, take a look in your spam folder, just to make sure it hasn’t landed there by mistake. If we are unable to reach you by email, we will send it to you in the post.

Any new customer who signs up from 1 June will be informed that prices will increase.  There is information on our website and in welcome packs to this effect.  All customers who have signed up will be sent an email before the price change occurs notifying them of the current and new rates as well as the date the price change will occur.

In the four states Powershop operates in, there is generally one price change a year for both electricity and gas, which generally occurs mid-year.

There’s been an exception this year in Victoria, where to bring Victoria in line with the other eastern Australian states, gas prices for our market offer may change twice – on 1 February and 1 August.

If you are a customer on a standing offer, these prices can be changed no more than once every six months.

There is a chance you might be notified of a tariff change. Part of your gas or electricity bill is a network tariff, which is set by your local distribution company – the people that own and operate the networks that bring gas or electricity to you. Since there are different distribution networks operating in different areas, these tariff prices vary depending on where you are.

It might help to know that some tariffs have recently changed as part of an initiative to make them better match the actual cost of using energy at different times of the day.

Changes in solar feed-in tariffs can be generally attributed to the supply and demand dynamics of the wholesale energy market during periods of solar generation. We update our feed-in tariffs from time to time and to take into account the cost of the wholesale energy during those time periods. Having your own solar generation is a great way to help reduce your overall bill.

GreenPower is a government accredited program aimed to support new renewable projects in Australia – retailers purchase Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) to cover the amount of GreenPower their customers purchase. We change our GreenPower rates from time to time taking into account changes related to the supply and demand of LGCs, including the volume of eligible renewable energy generation in Australia, which the GreenPower program aims to incentivise.

You can use the app or website to top up your account as you go, paying when it works for you.

If you’d rather make smaller payments each fortnight, for example, to match when you get paid, you can totally do that. When your power bill comes due, any credit you’ve already paid will automatically be deducted from your bill – which can be a big help with minimising bill shock.

It depends which kind of energy we’re talking about. For electricity, you’ll be billed monthly.

For gas, in NSW you’ll be billed quarterly. In Victoria, it’s every two months. Business customers can request quarterly bills.

(Of course, you can also top up your account whenever it suits you – come bill time, any credit in your account will go towards paying off your bill.)

The federal government is partnering with states and territories to help with electricity bills for eligible households and small businesses.

You can get more details on the relief fund here.