Amber Electric
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Overall saved us money, but there are hidden costs
Overall saved us money, it looks like our quarterly bill will go down from $250 to $150... HOWEVER... I'd call their pricing somewhat deceptive. In the app my "last 30days usage was $30.38", i just received my bill for that period... $72.56!!!! The app makes you think you're doing really well & its super cheap... and then then bill comes and its more than DOUBLE what their app says. For a normal provider - you pay a daily access charge & then pay for the electricity at the rates (single, time of use etc), and you pay nothing more - everything is rolled into those costs. Amber advertises "pay at wholesale", which you do but the extras are where they jack up the price. I have a $6.65 (>1/10th the bill) "environmental certificate cost" - you pay extra per kwh, then they make you pay for them to buy certificates? There's also a $10 metering charge (40c a day) to get meter data they pass on to you (>1/6th the bill) Neither of these costs are on their pricing page & over 1/3 of my bill is due to these unexpected & undocumented costs. They're good - but not completely transparent. In terms of variable pricing - BE CAREFUL - there are loads you cannot control - your water heater. After a bath i've seen our water heater on during evening peak times (4.8kw) & we've recently seen price spikes ($15/hr). The only way to turn off the water heater is to go out to the fuse box & manually switch it off (this would also wear out the circuit breakers & not advisable), and unless you have detailed power monitoring - you wouldnt know this. That was almost a $30 bath that one night!