I just came across an article on theguardian.com about a service by Choice where they automatically compare prices and switch your electricity to any provider that provide the best deal ($99/year subscription fee).
Anyone uses their service yet? If it is what they claim to be then $99/year is a pretty good deal to me considering my quarterly bill is like $500 already.
(https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/may/07/choic…)
Terrible website name…
If you're in Victoria, you can use the Victorian government's website (and get $50):
I'm with red Energy
They said they could save me $169 a year. . After charging me $99 a year …
So pass
Yeah, who wants to save $70.
For $70 a year i'd rather stick with RE and buy elec from Snowy Hydro.
It's green energy, without the "Green Energy" price hike.
What a stupid website name. Canis ave one nergy?
I'm with energy australia and have 300$ bill. Just sended the bill to this website… will see
Hi,
I work at CHOICE and helped make this service.
Can I Save On Energy is just the free bill checking service to find out how much you can save. People on ozbargain are more likely than others to have shopped around already and be on a better deal, but even if your deal was good when you signed up to it, they get worse over time so if you haven’t switched in the last year it’s definitely worth checking. We scan every publicly available deal on the market (there are thousands of them) every day and we don’t take commissions - unlike the switching services that just recommend the deals they get a commission for.
The free bill checking service can automatically handle most bills instantly, but when it can’t do it we have to send it to our team for manual analysis. We’ve had a huge number submitted since being featured in the TV news bulletins and the Today show on Monday so there’s a backlog there that we’re working through. If you haven’t heard back yet, stay tuned.
The full service is called CHOICE TRANSFORMER. We set it up because we found in our trials that even when people knew the details of the best deal on the market very few go through with the switch. People don’t want to make the calls, hang on hold, get the sales pitch - they just want the best deal. So we take care of the lot for a $99 annual fee - which includes not only finding the best deal but then continually checking (at the moment every quarter) to make sure you’re still on the best deal and then switching you again if you’re not.
The free bill scan will tell you if it’s worth it for you - or alternatively if you prefer to do the legwork yourself it will tell you how much saving is available, then you can use the free government sites to track down one of the better deals. I’d be up for a head-to-head test though - we had an energy economist and a data science team working for over a year to build a system that takes everything into account, including solar feed-in tariffs, controlled loads, discounts and bundles - the lot. It goes through thousands of deals daily, compares it to your energy usage profile, and finds the exact match for the best deal for you.
In the last couple of weeks we’ve found many households that can save over $1,000/yr - one over $2,000. These are with deals that the commission based switching sites won’t offer because the retailers that consistently have the best deals can’t afford to pad their bills to pay the hidden cost of a commission.
But once you find out how much you can save, however you end up finding the best deal and switching we’re happy. CHOICE is doing this to make a point, not a profit. At the moment the service is operating at a loss, but if it ever does make a quid that money will go straight back to looking after consumers because we’re a chartered non-profit that exists only for that purpose.
I like the look of this I reckon
Just use the Government's Energy Regulator site to compare plans. Just remember to check on a regular basis to see if there are any new discounts or rates.
Just tried submitting my Red Energy bill, and the system will not read it.
Submitted a support ticket, will see how I go.