AGL, Origin Energy Bills Set to Explode
Weeks after the Australian Energy Regulator revealed price hikes for Ausgrid, Essential, Endeavour, Energex and SAPN customers, retailers AGL and Origin have announced their own price rises.
Customers on variable rate contracts will see their bills rise in from July 1 in NSW, South Australia and Queensland, and in Victoria from August 1, with rises ranging from the merely painful 21% to an eye-watering 30%.
The bruising bill increases – topping out at an average $565 per bill for a residential AGL customer in South Australia, and a breathtaking $1133 for an Origin small business customer in South Australia – are driving a boom in solar and battery quotes. SolarQuotes is experiencing consistent high demand, even during the typically slow King/Queen’s Birthday weekend.
AGL
AGL attributed its rises to the Russia/Ukraine war’s impact on coal and gas prices; extreme weather which disrupted coal supply chains; elevated and international LNG prices.
And Australia’s aging fossil fuel generation plant was also a problem, with AGL citing “reliability issues … including sustained and unplanned outages of baseload generation plants”.
AGL’s residential rises are 29.7% in NSW ($540 per bill), 26.4% in Queensland ($447 per bill), 29.8% in South Australia ($565 per bill) and 25.5% in Victoria ($341).
AGL’s hardship program is Staying Connected, and those in the program will receive up to $400 in bill credits during the winter.
Origin
Origin’s residential customers will cop a 21.1% rise in NSW (an average increase of $407), 21.6% in Queensland ($347 per bill), 24.2% in South Australia ($405 per bill), and 25.5% in Victoria ($361 per bill).
Origin’s general manager of brand and customer experience, Catherine Anderson, told the ABC that the company will absorb customers’ pain in its Power On hardship program.
Feed in Tariffs
There’s some solace Origin solar feed in customers in some states, with small increases in payments coming on July 1. Origin’s Solar Boost and Solar Boost Plus plans are unchanged, but other customers in the ACT will go from 8c/kWh to 10c/kWh; in NSW the change is 5c/kWh to 7c/kWh, and in South Australia from 5c/kWh to 6c/kWh.
There’s no change in Queensland; in Victoria, the tariff drops from 5.2c/kWh to 4.9c/kWh.
AGL hasn’t announced any plans to change its feed-in tariffs.
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