Like most household items, it pays to shop around for your electricity and get the best deal. As we have always said, understanding is key – don’t just take a salesman’s word for it. New reports have ascertained the availability of information from electricity retailers about the feed-in tariffs offered as well as electricity consumption rates for solar power customers.

The Alternative Technology Association (ATA) has commissioned Alviss Consulting to produce a new report called, “Retail Offers and Market Transparency for Solar Customers.” The study covered South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. The report states that depending on the state and region, the financial difference between the best and the worst deals is $150 to $300 annually.

There is a lot of emphasis on the feed-in tariff when installing a solar energy system and people are not being told the impact on pricing per kilowatt usage. Retailers are once again worried about their bottom line and are trying to recoup costs where they can. Many states are having issues around retailers wanting to introduce higher fixed fees for solar customers. In addition to this, the report has found that installing solar power can cause changes to time-based tariffs and the loss of existing discounts.

“There’s been a lot of attention and publicity about feed-in tariffs for solar, but very little about retail consumption tariffs and other aspects of retail deals, including where retailers take away pay-on-time discounts when someone installs solar,” said Damien Moyse; the ATA’s energy projects and policy manager.

The ATA has advised the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) and state based regulators to ensure that electricity retailers supply information on their solar deals as they would any other deals they have. Solar customers should be treated in the same way that non-solar customers are. It has advised that a fact sheet be done for solar customers in the same way that non-solar customers have the ‘Shopping Around’ fact sheet. The costs and benefits of installing solar power should be well detailed. Authorities should ensure an ease of access for all customers to enable them to get the right information on all prices and products offered.

“Retailers are treating solar customers differently from non-solar customers for no specific reason, and this is something that should be closely looked at by relevant Energy Market Regulators and potentially the ACCC.”