What, Why and When?
Electricity and gas rates change for some of our customers in Victoria in 2020.
From 1 January 2020
- All Victorian customers on our Basic Home plan
- All customers on our Basic Business plan
- Bulk Hot Water
From 27 January 2020
- All Victorian customers on non-fixed rate market retail offer plans, such as Anytime Saver, Flexi Saver, Flexi Saver Business and Everyday Saver Business just to name a few.
What’s a market retail offer?
An energy plan with the prices set by the retailer (that’s us) typically with a benefit or incentive (e.g. a discount or a credit to your bill) for a fixed amount of time.
Customers not impacted:
- Our Managed Builder Partners
- Customers on a fixed rate plan such as Secure Saver, No Frills Home, No Frills Business, Rate Fix Business, Total Plan Home, Total Plan Business, Total Plan Plus Home and Total Plan Plus Business.
For existing customers
Emails or letters to let you know about the rate change have been sent from 17 December 2019 for those customers whose rate will change from 1 January 2020.
If you’re a customer with rate changes on the 27 January 2020, email or letters will go out between 7 - 17 January 2020.
You can also view your new rates on your first bill issued after the date your rates change.
For new customers
You’ll also be able to contact us on 1800 001 772 Monday to Friday, 8.00am to 8.00pm AEDT.
The Essential Services Commission (ESC) have released new prices.
If you’re on a Basic Home or Basic Business electricity plan on a:
- Flat rate or a flat rate with controlled load, your rates have changed.
- Standing offer time of use rate. This rate changed to the Victorian Default Offer rate.
If you are on these plans, we sent you an email or letter to let you know about the rate change.
View our new Basic Home and Basic Business rates.
Find out more about the Victorian Default Offer.
In an email or letter to let you know about the rate change.
You can also view your new rates on your first bill issued after the date your rates change.
Fees and charges for eg: reconnection and disconnection fees will change.
The amount your electricity and gas bill will change by will depend on your usage, the energy plan you're on and the distribution area you live in.
When we sent you an email or letter to let you know about the rate change, we provided an estimated cost or saving of the change.
Energy travels through four main stages on its journey from generation to the point where you turn
on a switch. Each stage incurs costs that are passed on to you via your energy bill. It is changes in these four main areas that generally influence energy rate changes. These include:
- Wholesale costs – to purchase electricity and gas from generators and producers
- Network costs – charged by distributors for energy transmission and maintenance of the pipes, poles and wires that delivers your energy
- Retail costs – charged by us for servicing and billing your account
- Other costs – incurred by us to comply with government schemes such as the Renewable Energy Target
To find out more, take a look at our video, ‘How energy gets to you’.
Electricity customers on the Victorian Default Offer rates
The Victorian Default Offer rates are set by the Essential Services Commission (ESC) in Victoria. The ESC reviews the reference price every year on 1 January.
The rates used to calculate your energy bills are made up of both usage rates and supply charges.
- The supply charge is a fixed daily service charge to supply energy to your home or small business
- Usage charges are rates charged for the energy you use. Some tariffs have different usage rates depending on the time of day and day of the week you use energy.
Rates are also known as tariffs. For more information go to our tariff pages.
Typically, we review our rates every year:
- in Victoria rate changes usually occur in January and the Essential Services Commission (ESC) reviews the Victorian Default Offer price every year on 1 January.
- in Queensland, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and South Australia they tend to happen in July and the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) reviews the Default Market Offer price every year on 1 July.
There may be occasions where a rate change needs to happen at another time.
You can have important notices, including information about rate changes sent direct to your email inbox. Here’s how:
- Register or log in to My Account
- update your ‘bill delivery preference’ to email, to receive your bills and rate change notices via email
- update your ‘communication preference’ to email, to receive important information about your account via email
When you register for My Account, you’ll also receive alerts about upcoming rate changes once you log in.
Your bill will be split pro-rata:
- all rates and charges before and after the change will be detailed on the bill
- your bill will be calculated with the old rates for any of the billing period before the rate change date
- your bill will be calculated with the new rates for the billing period after the rate change date.
The short answer is yes.
A Regular Pay plan is a convenient way to pay your energy bills. Here’s how it works:
- you arrange to pay an instalment amount each week, fortnight or month
- you continue to receive your bills as usual. They’ll show how well your payments are covering your actual usage and charges
- we check to make sure you’re not paying too much or too little, and get in touch if anything needs to change.
Please contact us as soon as possible, so we can work with you to arrange an extension and/or set up a payment plan.
- visit My Account
- chat with us
- call us on 1800 001 772 (Monday to Friday, 8am–8.00pm AEST) and we’ll be happy to help.
We’re all for helping you find smarter ways to use energy. Just head to our ‘Better Energy’ blog to find tips on how to reduce your energy bills, info on going solar, the latest on battery storage and more.
If you receive a Life Support rebate, the daily rate has moved in line with any overall change in rates for your home electricity bills from the date your rates change.
There's no changes to PureEnergy GreenPower.
Yes, the cost of your bulk hot water changed on 1 January 2020. You’ll find this rate on your rate change letter or your bill issued from the 1 January 2020.
- chat with us clicking on the Need Help? Button at bottom of our home page
- call us on 1800 001 772 (Monday to Friday, 8.00am–8.00pm AEST) and we’ll be happy to help.
Outside of these hours?