The great meter reading fiasco
Matthew Dunk was delighted to receive his first accurate power bill since installing grid-connected solar. It’s just the months of negotiations to get a correct meter reading that caused him the most frustration. Have you had problems with your grid-connect solar bills?
Click here to download the article.
April 27th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
My import / export meter was installed September 07, my first read was inclusive of 9 days of export however I was billed the $5 rather than credited. it took until 31st Jan 08 to have the problem resolved. from there I didn’t receive another account until August – only after much pressure and threats to contact the ombudsman. I immediately ditched Origin as my retailer due to their incompetence (and poor feed-in-tariff rate) and jumped to TRU energy. Needless to say since August 08 to now I have not received an account at all (not even an incorrect one) which is highly frustrating as I am roughly $500 in credit.
I am involved within the solar industry and it is very frustrating to have these retailers seemingly unable (or unwilling) to process solar customers as they do their standard customers
May 28th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Ditto same story to tell over last 7 years and 2 retail companys I am told is a suppler vs retailer reading vs billing conflict (I dont care just sort it out) I was made to get new $600 plus meter to install PV system but told now they just estimate bill any o hoo. I hear one guy says stick it just wont pay and they can not do a thing as billing fault lays with power company.
June 9th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
In August 2008, we changed our electricity supplier to AGL. After the swap over we received a power bill for just over $11,000, which of course was accepted as a mistake by the supplier. On the 1st June 2009, we received from AGL four invoices for our power usage for the last nine
months! In January 2009 we went online with a 3.4kW solar power unit. The invoice from AGL for the 3 months on full solarproduction was for 200kWh at a cost of $32.50. We were also billed for a service charge of $45.70. After speaking to the Office of the Energy & Water Ombudsman Victoria, I was informed that the amount of the service charge to the property should not exceed the amount charge for electricity usage. This is set out in the Energy Retail Code dated January 2009, which can be found at http://www.ewov.com.au. I was unaware of this and after speaking to AGL, they have reissued the invoice. It would seem that this is not an automatic process in the AGL invoice program
so I will have to check each invoice as it is received. The Code also states that unbilled power usage over 9 months does not need to be paid. This is a Victorian code, so I don’t know about other states, but I wonder how many other solar power domestic producers are unaware of this.
July 9th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
WOW intersting discussion!
I discovered yesterday that AGL don’t give credits for generating any power. Sadly I only discovered it yesterday, after installing a 2 KW solar power system in MAY this 2009. Even the Green Energy Council can’t do anything to make AGL give credits to customer with grid connected systems.
So it was an easy decision, find a power company that does, only realsing that it’s not that simple, the change over to another provider can only be done at the next meter read. I guess I will discover more about the challenges associated with doing the right thing and trying to be green.
August 16th, 2009 at 8:44 am
I wonder if anyone has considered a “selling group” for solar panel owners. Much the same way as solar buyers groups that many people have used to buy their panels. Basically as a group shop around for the best price for feed in?
September 16th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
We have installed a 6KW system in WA. Our electicity supplier is Horizon Power. They advertise on their website that a residential feed in tariff is available and a “commercial tariff will be negotiated on a case by case basis”. Before we bought the system we spoke to people in our area who were already on a commercail tariff. Our Land is zoned mixed use which means we have a house and a commercial shed. Horizon Power are refusing to negotiate with us saying that they are currently doing research and are not signing any new contracts until the research is finished, the research does not have an end date. We do not have an alternate supplier in our area.
Who do we turn to for advice?
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:53 am
Hi Michelle,
Assuming that your property is primarily a residence and this is the primary use for which your PV system generates, then you will be eligible for the residential renewable energy buyback scheme, offered by Horizon Power. Currently, this is a standard tariff rate only, 16c / kWh (it is the same as the retail rate at which you buy from Horizon, minus the GST component).
If you are negotiating with Horizon for a commercial connection, then you will no doubt be at the whim of Horizon’s process here. I will place an ad on an internet discussion group called ARGON (Australia Renewable energy Generators ON-line) to see if there is someone that can assist more directly in WA.
Also, the WA Government has commited to a premium feed-in tariff however as yet my understanding is that all of the details have not been finalised. It is likely though that this premium tariff which will be mandated upon electricity retailers will see a 60c / kWh premium paid for excess electricity exported back into the grid (i.e. after household consumption). My understanding though is that this premium tariff will not be enacted until sometime in 2010.
Cheers, Damien.
ATA.
December 6th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Hi
We are having similar problems with import export meter readings from our electricity supplier. Our electricity account doubled even though we installed a solar hot water system and were importing electricity into the grid. We have purchased a meter to monitor the usage in our home which has our usage average at 6kwh per day, the import export meter shows between 50 – 60kwh usage per day even though our inverter shows we are making 10-16kwh per day. We are currently waiting on Country Energy to install another meter to check the import export meter. Still waiting!!
December 7th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Hi Mary,
Would be interested to know the size of your system (and of your property)? And also your location.
Cheers, Damien.
January 17th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
We abandoned AGL when they were only prepared to to pay the SA government buyback 44c per kilowatt hour and moved to TRU energy to take advantage of their 20c top up. It took nine months to receive a bill from them, then when it arrived there was no buyback factoed into the bill. Six phonecalls and three months later I still haven’t received a corrected bill. The difference is over $800 so it is worth resolving. I am in no hurry to return to AGL as an acquaintance has received a letter from them asking for payment of his CREDIT. I suspect that all the electricity retailers rely on automated systems and that none of them deal with the negative numbers generated by canny PV owners. I predict that all of us will be shunned by the major retailers as PV cusomers will too often be a liability to their companies. Perhaps a separate retailer needs to be set up.
March 12th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
We installed 3kw system almost 3 years ago. Were advised not to change supplier relationship until system was settled in. So we remained with AGL.
Invoices became very erratic, with no connection to meter readings which I maintain in a spreadsheet on a monthly basis.
I considered taking the issue to Ombudsman. Finally became so annoyed we switched to Origin, whose publicity makes them look more progressive. Soon after this a special meter reading man arrived to sort out a ‘meter reading problem’. After some messing about with his reader we succeeded in obtaining readings.
The change came into effect early in summer when we are exporting most of our production, well in excess of usage, we have not yet received any account from Origin. I look forward to their first account, but reading the experiences above does not add to any confidence in suppliers’ capabilities to account properly and transparently.