Savings Page - Why is my electricity bill different to my Energy Cost?

Solar Analytics measures the exact amount of electricity that you use and export during the billing period, beginning and ending at midnight. However, your electricity retailer may ‘read’ your usage at a slightly different time at the beginning and the end of the period.

This is particularly the case for residences with an older ‘spinning wheel’ meter that needs to be read manually and may be done at any time during the day. You should expect a small difference between your electricity bill and your Energy Cost. If you notice a large difference, there could be an error in your billing.

Some of the reasons why there may be a small difference:

• The addition of GST. Check if your Electricity bill displays your total bill cost with, or without GST.  Note whether your energy plans include GST. There is a checkbox on the edit and add ‘Energy Plans’ pages that will allow you to include or exclude GST and we will calculate it for you
• You may have a controlled load tariff (e.g. off-peak hot water systems), demand charge, or stepped tariff (e.g your usage charge changes after a certain number of kWhs).
  • If you have a controlled load, you may be able to monitor your controlled load in your Solar Analytics Dashboard and have your plan details updated automatically.
  • If you have demand charges, you may be able to account it using CDR.
• If your site is a commercial business, you may attract different electricity charges that are not currently enabled on the Solar Analytics dashboard

Note: If you have a special charge on your energy plans that we haven’t enabled, please send details through to our support centre.

For cases where the difference is higher than expected, please check the following:

If you notice a significant difference between your electricity bill and your Energy Cost, there may be an issue with the way you have been billed by your electricity retailer. First check:

1. Is the billing period selected exactly the same on the Dashboard and Bill?
2. Is your energy plan information up-to-date on your ‘Energy Plans’ page?
3. Are you comparing your electricity bill before or after discounts have been applied?
    
   Also note that some electricity retailers use a different billing model that allows for pre-payment of electricity and may include special discounting throughout the billing cycle. In this instance, you may have a more accurate result by just checking the electricity usage and export values on your Dashboard and your Bill.

If, after investigation, you find that your electricity bill is significantly different to your Energy Cost, we encourage you to contact your Electricity Retailer and explain the difference to them. You can use your Solar Analytics data to provide evidence in this regard, and we are happy to receive communication from them to verify any discrepancies.