Unfortunately, I’ve waited too late; I’m still in shock about the $900 electricity bill I mentioned before…‘buyer beware’ – I trusted Momentum Energy, so when the opportunity arose to make a Submission, my only comment was along the lines of ‘I can’t comment – it would only reiterate what others have said; thanks (to SC) for the opportunity’. It was Peter hocking who made me realise I was well & truly ripped off. Now that Submissions have closed, I don’t know who to turn to, who to ask about justice being served; seriously, that $900 bill & the one SOON after that is CRIPPLING me!!

Recently the solar return in Victoria was lowered from 8 cents per KWh to 6.92 cents. Close scrutiny of the bill reveals a 10 % increase in service charges as well as the following hidden charges. The smart meter does not adjust to daylight saving. Probably not a problem if you have no solar hot water and you are only billed at a single peak rate. So why do we have 4 different peak charge rates when the billing simply ignores them. The closest answer I can find that is that the billing system is simply to dumb to cope. That’s why we are charged averages. (So why do we pay for something that simply does not even work? Why did the taxpayer give these utilities millions of dollars to install a smart metering system when the old meters could have easily done the job by simply running backward). In addition, the service fees reveal that I pay 16 cents per KWh for grid connection and to export my excess power. In other words I pay the grid owners 16 cents so they can transmit my power to my neighbour while my neighbour’s retailer buys it to sell to my neighbour at 27 cents. This looks like a very creative double accounting system in my books! Additional meter charges for data management are added into the service charge mix because no one can agree on who owns the data. This also includes the redirection of data to the retailer who may not be a grid owner. These hidden charges are never spelled out on the bills and I only discovered this after the usual telephone merry go round. So apart from the fact that my returns have been lowered and are justified under the annual 10% price adjustment, I am also charged 16 cents per KWh so that the energy retailer can sell my excess energy to my neighbour. If these hidden charges continue to spiral out of control it would be cheaper to install a battery storage solution and run a cable directly to my neighbour. The question is, why are solar owners paying grid connection and service fees at all when the excess energy we produce incurs no transmission loss and is actually cheaper to deliver then the energy produced by remote coal and gas power stations. Is it true that solar owners are subsidizing the loss making coal fired power stations whilst contributing to a reduction in average electricity prices due to the very expensive conversion of coal to gas? If that is the case then I would be happy to subsidize grid embedded energy storage.

Soon after installing a 3KW grid-interactive system I received a bill from Momentum of some $900!! Soon after that, another one for some $100! People I’ve spoke to about have urged mew to ‘check it’ – but I don’t know where to start!

Have submitted my comments.

The only comment I can give reflects the existing comments, so I thank you for this opportunity.

Thanks Solar Citizens for alerting me to this and making it easy to submit my 2cents worth. I have done it and can only hope it makes a difference.

Privatisibg energy supply was an open invitation to energy retailers to print money. The public was always going to be laying exorbanant prices.

Privatisibg energy supply was an open invitation to energy retailers to print money. The public was always going to be laying exorbanant prices.

I welcome a fair and open enquiry….Unfortunately I expect it to be far from open or fair when so many of our politicians are bought and owned by the big corporations/companies….

WE welcome such an enquiry as the Corporate power that overrides a fair F.I.T. rate needs to be addressed by such a full and independent inquiry, that is for sure.

Well I have made my submission and hope appropriate action is being taken, to once and for all stop these rip off companies from making excessive profits, having paid their so called “fat cats” excessive wages / salaries and use these cuts for their gold-plating instead of ripping the every day Australian off with excessive electricity increases. Enough is enough.