Thursday, March 22, 2012

Breakdown of Electricity Bill

Sounds interesting? Well...maybe. I was just curious to know for myself the facts considering electricity costs contribute to a considerable amount of most people's income.

Well we're all friends here...my last bill was for $321.35. Ever wondered if I can back up my 'green' talk? Well my last electricity bill cost over double my last one AKA cutting consumption in half. And the money I saved was an awesome bonus and gets me closer to my goal of eliminating my electricity bills completely by installing solar cells and keeping usage to a minimum.

GENERAL SALES TAX

I'm living in Australia and a utility bill is apparently subject to General Sales Tax (GST)...think that sucks? Don't forget most electricity here will be further taxed as it will be subject to the Carbon Tax.

So 10% (cost of GST) of the bill straight-up isn't even for electricity. The GST on this bill totaled $29.20, what the Government spends it on I wouldn't have a clue - Repaying the debt they generated I suppose...

PRICING OPTIONS + CHARGES

*sigh* Moving on...I have two methods of metering my electricity usage - Peak Hours and Off Peak Hours.

The peak hours are (my understanding) times in which there are high demands placed on electricity providers to...provide electricity i.e. at around 6pm when everyone's gone home from work and turned on the Air Conditioning, Television and cooked their dinner. Off peak refers to times when there isn't as much demand such as the early hours when people are generally expected to be in bed asleep with most appliances turned off.

The cost of electricity is charged as units...these units are Kilowatt Hours or kWh for short; equal to an appliance consuming one thousand watts for one hour.

Another charge is the 'Access Charge'. A fee charged simply to have access to the electricity in the first place. I know, right?

MY COSTS

Note: I receive a "4% discount", the costings below reflect this so-called 'discount'

The Access Charge for OFF PEAK is $0.0943 per day or ~$34.40 per year provided that the charge doesn't increase in cost. A kWh of OFF PEAK electricity in my last bill was costed at $0.1445

The Access Charge for PEAK is $0.9408 per day or ~$343 per year provided that the charge doesn't increase in cost. A kWh of PEAK electricity in my last bill was costed at $0.2517


FINAL COSTING

Between the OFF PEAK and the PEAK electricity I racked up electricity costs of $192.78
The bill period covered 96 days so the combined ACCESS CHARGES costs were $99.37


THE BREAKDOWN/CONCLUSION

For an electricity bill total of $321.35...

$29.20 (~10%) was for GST
$99.37 (~30%) was for Access Charges
$192.78 (~60% was for electricity

As you can see close to half a electricity bill isn't for electricity consumed by the user...provided you are provided with electricity the same way I am :P