Smart meter rollout by 2030 to usher in time of use & demand pricing

Manual meters only measure the total amount of electricity a property has used, and they need to be physically checked by someone every couple of months. This is called a flat rate tariff, meaning you pay the same rate for electricity no matter when you draw it from the grid. That is, until smart meters. Smart meters sent a signal back to the utility automatically every 30 minutes. By the end of this decade, every Australian home is set to be fitted with a smart meter. You already know about flat rate pricing, but what happens when pricing becomes more dynamic? So this household has still used 1200 kilowatt hours, but let's split it up into peak and off peak. Let's say the people who live here managed to rack up 400 kilowatt hours during the peak usage time at a cost of $0.60 per kWh and 800 kilowatt hours during off peak times at a cost of $0.20 per kWh. Their bill is now $100 more expensive than it was under the flat rate. It's called a time of use tariff, the theory goes, if the price of electricity varies from hour to hour, just like Ubers and airline tickets, it creates incentives for people to turn down their air conditioners or delay setting off dishwashers during peak times, usually between 4:00 and 8:00 PM. If this household did just that, reducing their on peak usage by 300 kilowatt hours, instead of spending an extra $100, they've now saved 20. There's another type of charge that's raised the hackles of consumers even more. The A triple C is particularly worried about demand tariffs, a type of flexible price that charges for electricity based on your single biggest point of usage across an entire month. Say a householder, is a way for the 1st 30 days of January. But then returns on the final day of the month. It's during a heat wave and they run the air conditioning while someone is watching TV in the living room and dinner is being cooked in the electric oven. Their maximum demand is 8 kilowatt hours that evening. Based on the way the tariff is calculated, they get slugged $60.00 in demand charges for the month. The A triple C says the best thing you can do is check your plan regularly.