Savings as a Service - Bill Hero newsletter - Issue #6

Hi there,

Welcome to the April edition of Savings as a Service. It’s been another big month for Bill Hero and for the retail energy industry in general, and we’re here to tell you all about it.

We’ve launched Bill Hero for Business! This has been one of the biggest requests since we first released the Bill Hero residential service.

To access the discount, just signup to Bill Hero for Business and use the discount code BIZLAUNCH.

We’ve added GreenPower into the pricing algorithm for our residential electricity service. GreenPower is a government scheme that allows you to buy renewable electricity, and support renewable generation, by voluntarily paying a bit more per kWh in your electricity bills.

‘How much more’? I hear you ask. ‘And does that extra money really go to renewable generation’? Well, the answers are, ‘it depends’, and ‘partially’.

We’ve done the research, and you probably will not be surprised to learn that GreenPower is yet another area where retailers work hard to bamboozle customers to their own benefit:

Our new GreenPower capability makes it easy to see the price impact for the various levels of GreenPower available, and allows you to maximise the impact of your GreenPower choice, while minimising the cost. Now you can support renewable generation the smart way, not just support your retailer.

We reckon our GreenPower comparison, coupled with the Green Ratings feature that we launched last month, makes Bill Hero by far the best Green energy comparison service in Australia.

After a long run of declining wholesale electricity prices, the market is turning a corner, and the outlook ahead is for wholesale price increases.

We expect the retailers to be much faster to pass through these wholesale increases than they were to pass through the price declines that have been unfolding in the wholesale market for the past couple of years.

Since we first launched Bill Hero, our subscribers have consistently asked for the same service to be made available for their businesses. Finally, we can announce that it’s ready.

Bill Hero for Business brings the unique Bill Hero Savings as a Service proposition to SME business electricity accounts, including always-on bill monitoring, automated analysis, personalised comparison and switching support to help make sure that your business will never overpay for electricity again.

The retail energy regulations distinguish between ‘Small’ and ‘Large’ electricity consumers, and Bill Hero for Business handles ‘Small’, or SME business electricity accounts only. If your business qualifies as a ‘Large’ electricity consumer, then there’s no published prices available for Bill Hero to work with, and you’ll need bespoke brokerage services to get the most competitive deals. We don’t offer those brokerage services directly, but we can refer you to trusted partners who do.

Last month, we launched our Green Ratings feature, which displays the Green Electricity Guide star rating for every retailer in the Bill Hero results. You can filter your results by Green Rating, so you can more easily choose plans from retailers that meet your Green expectations and requirements.

This month, we’re launching a complimentary feature to include GreenPower pricing in the Bill Hero comparison. GreenPower is a government program that allows energy consumers to buy renewable electricity, and support renewable generation, by voluntarily paying an additional price uplift on the electricity they consume.

GreenPower is marketed as a way for you to financially support renewable generation, however there’s no correlation between the GreenPower prices set by your retailer, and the amount of money that ultimately makes it to the renewable generators you’re trying to support.

We’ve found that some retailers blatantly overcharge GreenPower buyers – presumably because they consider any buyer willing to pay extra is fair game for gouging.

Overpaying for GreenPower only rewards the retailer, so even if you’re willing to pay above the odds to support renewable generation, it absolutely makes sense to find and stay on the best priced GreenPower plans available.

Our new GreenPower pricing tool does exactly that, and supports you as a Green energy consumer to find and buy the plan that will deliver the full benefit to renewable generators at the lowest cost to you.

Coal prices are on the rise, leading to a sharp increase in futures pricing for electricity. After about two years of decline, retail electricity prices are now expected to go up. Unsurprisingly, the price increases will manifest in consumer bills much more quickly than the wholesale price savings were previously passed through.

We’ve all been pretending that summer is not over, but it’s now undeniable – the cooler weather is here, and it’s time to get prepared for the cold months ahead.

Here’s our recommendations across the four main energy consuming elements of your home, to keep your energy bill under control in the face of increasing consumption and increasing prices through the colder months ahead.

Here’s one of our all-time favourite reviews, you can see them all at https://billhero.com.au/reviews