Power play: Selling electricity at a monthly rate like a phone plan
This man wanted to set up a venture offering electricity plans structured like phone plans. Then he discovered a big retailer was about to do just that. He’s now one of its first customers.
NSW
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Luke Poliszcuk rang a web developer recently to set up a site offering electricity tariffs structured like phone plans — regular monthly payments for a set amount of usage.
The developer told him he was too late, it was about to launch a site to do just that for NSW’s second-largest power retailer, EnergyAustralia.
Rather than be bitter about being beaten to the punch, Mr Poliszcuk has become one of the first customers of EA’s new venture, On.
“I know exactly how much have to pay,” Mr Poliszcuk, of Burwood, said yesterday. “That’s great, because I have a young family and our bills can fluctuate all over the place.”
EA is the first major power retailer to sell power in the same way as access to a mobile network. “We think the market needs a lot more innovation,” EA customer business head Mark Collette said.
“It’s attractive to people who hate the shock of getting a big bill.”
On offers Easy Plan and Easy Plan Plus. Easy Plan comes in XS, S, M, L and XL, with set monthly amounts of electricity on a one-year deal.
A family in Endeavour Energy distribution area on an L deal would pay $214 per month for 10,150 kilowatt hours.
Like a phone plan, anything unused in one month rolls over to the next, and customers are notified if they approach their monthly cap, with top-ups from $10 a day available. “We are trying to take the good bits from phone plans but not the bad bits,” Mr Collette said.
Comparison company Canstar energy product spokesman Simon Downes said: “You put a lot of trust in the retailer to be giving you a good deal and these types of products do make comparing apples with apples a little more difficult.”