Amber Electric
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Yeah...Nah
So we moved houses and decided to move to Amber from Origin to see if we could save some money on power. We were paying 28c per kwh so paying wholesale sounded like music to my ears. First month I had one price spike which fits inline with their 0.1% price spikes, bill was ~$400. We normally paid between 400-600 a month in power previously, so this met our expectations. We are a family of 5: 2 parents I wfh, wife is at Uni + working pt as well as 3 teenage kids. Its fair to say we use alot of electricity, everyone has their own PC/laptop, lights are left on, washing machine is constantly going - you get the picture. I have the amber iphone app send me notifications when the price spikes above 33c. And boy the last 2 weeks its been blowing up my phone. $100 for 3 days? Seriously! Going from $14-16 a day on average to $29-$42 a day? I'm not just talking about price spikes between $10-20 per kwh but also ~35-49c per kwh during most of the day? WTH? Be warned, any big electricity users or big families look elsewhere. The wholesale spin is not worth it. Best to find a capped rate as the potential savings are wiped out with only a couple of horrendous days of spikes. I know you're gonna say conserve power during these spikes/rises but do you want to have a cold breakfast on a winters morning? Can't I have a hot meal for dinner from the oven or slow cooker? Can't I turn on my reverse cycle AC when its cold at night? How do I get my clothes dry in a wet spell without my dryer? We do our best to turn appliances off but how do you accommodate multiple price spikes (above 33c) throughout the entire day? I mean the cheapest rates over the last few days have been between midnight and 5am. Whose awake then? I know people will probably respond saying I'm exaggerating. You're just lucky I can't upload the screenshots from my phone. Anyway we are moving onto another provider with the transfer completing in 2 weeks now as I'm tired of the price gouging.