Households face buying $600 smart meter to avoid electricity 'bill shock'

Date
    March 8, 2016
    Sydney Morning Herald

More than 130,000 NSW households face paying up to $600 to install new electricity smart meters or negotiating to have them included in new contracts to avoid a spike in their power bills at the end of 2016.   

The looming "bill shock" is due to the closure of the solar bonus scheme, under which households with solar panels can sell electricity back to the grid at a rate of either 60¢ or 20¢ per kilowatt hour.

From December 31, that amount is set to plummet to 6¢ per kilowatt hour as the scheme is drawn to a close as planned.

This leaves the households potentially selling electricity to the grid for 6¢ per kilowatt hour but being forced to buy it from their retailer for as much as 30¢.


To combat this, the NSW government is introducing new laws to make it easier for retailers to offer households smart meters, which allow monitoring of electricity flows to and from the network.

Smart meters are required for customers to switch from gross metering – the current situation – to net metering, so they can potentially power their households with solar panels and sell any excess back to the grid.

The government's bill will expand the number of contractors able to be trained to install smart meters in NSW from about 2,000 now to as many as 35,000.

But the NSW Greens say the solution is flawed, as the government estimates each smart meter could cost up to $600.   

Alternatively, if retailers cover the cost of the meter they could force households into new, long-term contracts.

They also say that in briefings, energy minister Anthony Roberts' advisers estimate that only 80,000 households will switch to smart meters, still leaving 50,000 to suffer "bill shock". 

"People installed solar panels in good faith with the incentive of a feed-in tariff, and did not expect, nor deserve this nasty sting in the tail," said Greens MLC Jeremy Buckingham.

"The government should require retailers to install net meters and not leave it to the market knowing that tens of thousands of households will be ripped off."   

Mr Roberts said the government had opted for a voluntary, market-led roll out of smart meters as opposed to the mandatory system introduced by the Victorian government.

"Our policy of a market-led rollout will ensure households and businesses are free to choose whether they want a smart meter and the best retail offer that suits their needs," he said.

"The legislation will ensure that smart meters can be rolled out to Solar Bonus Scheme customers efficiently and in line with the state's existing safety guidelines.

"This will help drive competition and better deals as retailers compete for the state's customers."

Another reason why small scale rooftop solar is an expensive white elephant.

This leaves the households potentially selling electricity to the grid for 6¢ per kilowatt hour but being forced to buy it from their retailer for as much as 30¢.

Can I get a hip hip hooray for privatisation .

78 million dollars worth of meters , now I wonder how many Libs have their finger in that pie 

Swagman wrote on Mar 12^th, 2016 at 12:33pm:


How could that be?  Haven't they sold most of it already?

Its time wrote on Mar 12^th, 2016 at 12:00pm:


Those meters are made in India for 5 bucks each. Some scumbag is laughing all of the way to the bank at the consumers expense

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This made no difference in Victoria. Electricity prices just keep increasing contrary to the claims of these meters

The truth of the matter is the existing mechanical meters are perfectly OK but the reason why they want to get rid of them is because they give parity on any feedins to the grid and greed incorporated just doesn't like that for obvious reasons when they only want to offer a measly 6 cents a kwh

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It is a heavily regulated industry. They probably aren't allowed to. Poor people might not be able to afford the connection fee. It would be a whole different ball game if you had to negotiate with the electricity companies to get them to connect you in the first place, like you have to with phones etc. The sense of entitlement would go straight out the window.

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Are you a communist? I don't think the intention was ever to give people free electricity. Do you think we were paying for them twice over when the government sent you the bill?