How I cut my family’s power bill by more than $300 a year

Anthony Albanese promised to cut power bills by $275 a year. But he didn’t. In 15 minutes I did for my family what the Prime Minister could not. Here I show you how to do the same.

Before the last election, Anthony Albanese promised to slash power bills. But exactly the opposite has happened.

Since June 2022, electricity prices have surged by (31 per cent in Sydney, 17 per cent in Melbourne, 11 per cent in Brisbane, 26 per cent in Adelaide) and 20 per cent across all capital cities.

And that’s after factoring in all but the most recent round of taxpayer-funded rebates.

A household that was paying $2000 annually when Labor won office is now forking out

$2400 a year.

John and Kate Rolfe with their children Carter, 11, and Eliza, 9, and their dog Ruby. Picture: Justin Lloyd

Yet only one in five households switch providers in a given year, official data shows.

By failing to shop around regularly, many people are just giving power retailers more money than necessary.

Today we will show you exactly how to get the most competitive rates and slash your electricity bill.

How much can I save? 

By following the simple steps set out here, households can expect to cut their costs by $120 to $220 a year, according to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER). It was over $300 for me – and I thought I was on a really good deal already.

How hard is it going to be? 

Not very. It took me less than 15 minutes from start to finish, including the time to sign up with the new provider.

Technology is making switching easier than ever. It is not like changing banks or insurers. It is relatively straightforward. You don’t have to do any negotiating if you don’t want to. But if you do want to make your case over the phone, we’ve provided a script.

Where do I start? 

It used to be that you had to gather your past year of bills and provide all the usage details into a comparison site. That’s no longer the case.

Now you just need one bill – and one number from it, called the NMI, or National Metering Identifier. It’s typically on the front page of your bill, usually near the account number. It will be 10 or 11 digits long.

What do I do next?

Go to a website called energymadeeasy.gov.au. It is the best place to compare prices for both electricity or gas – or both at once. It is independent, does not pay commissions to retailers and is run by the AER.

Victorians need to use a state government website named Victorian Energy Compare instead.

Step through the questions. They aren’t complicated and won’t take long to answer. Towards the end you’ll enter your NMI.

The website will then fetch data on your home’s specific usage over the past year – to cover variations in consumption as the seasons change.

It will use that data as it trawls through all the offers in the entire market to find you the cheapest deal.

A list of the lowest-priced offers will appear. The default setting excludes additional discounts, such as for paying by direct debit. You may wish to change that setting. I did.

For me, the potential saving was $310 a year on electricity.

Most of the advice here also applies to gas. Of course you’ll need to get a separate meter number from that bill. Depending on where you live it could have a different name.

It will likely have the word ‘Identification’ or ‘Identifier’ in the name. You may have to enter usage data yourself for gas. I suggest doing so for your last four quarterly bills. I changed gas providers too, saving hundreds of dollars more annually.

What happens next? 

If you do decide to switch, you will need to go to the new provider’s website. You can’t do the change on the Energy Made Easy platform, but it will provide you will the precise details of the plan and a link to the provider’s site.

By failing to shop around regularly, many people are just giving power retailers more money than necessary.

It did not take me very long to sign up to my new provider. I had to enter my driver's licence specifics for identity verification and credit card details to set up the direct debit. That earned me a slightly larger discount.

The rest will happen in the background.

You don’t have to switch. Some people don’t want to. And that’s fair enough. You could just use the cheaper price as a negotiating tool with your existing provider. Our script should help with the discussion. By the way, your current retailer should already be telling you if they have a cheaper offer under rules that commenced last year.

How often do I need to do this? 

Every year. It had been 15 months since I shopped around. That’s why I wasn’t on the most competitive tariff.

The provider who is cheapest today is unlikely to be the cheapest in 12 months’ time because they and their competitors will change their prices.

Going back to Energy Made Easy and re-running this process is really not painful. I found it satisfying. I don’t want to give Big Energy any more money than I absolutely have to. If you are reading this then no doubt you don’t want to either.

For the amount of time required, the pay-off is worth it for most people.

* The Australian Bureau of Statistics only tracks price movements in capital cities.

Originally published as How I cut my family’s power bill by more than $300 a year