It’s Chris here, co-founder and co-CEO of Amber.
We’ve seen some unusual energy market activity over the last few weeks, so I wanted to give you some more context on what’s driving this, how we see things playing out, and how you’re protected going forward.
What’s been happening over the past few weeks
This winter has seen some eastern states shivering through some of their coldest mornings in decades, with less wind and rain impacting renewable energy generation. The decrease in expected supply of energy into the grid (from wind and hydro) and increase in energy demand (from the unexpectedly cold weather) has given the coal and gas generators ample opportunity to raise their prices with aggressive bidding, causing higher wholesale prices in the market. This culminated last Monday where we saw some significant price volatility across all states.
The good news is that as we look ahead to the approach of spring, we expect to see milder weather and solar production start to increase which will result in lots (and lots!) of very cheap times to use energy.
Price Protection - Amber Bill Guarantee
To help protect our customers during times of increased volatility, Amber has our Bill Guarantee. Every quarter, we calculate the total average wholesale price you paid for that period. If you paid more than the rate we guarantee, we will credit you the difference.
April to June 2024 Quarter: Final calculations for the April-June Quarter bill guarantees are almost complete and will be applied to eligible accounts in the coming week.
July to September 2024 Quarter: With the recent price volatility, we have decided to make early payouts on next quarter’s bill guarantee. We hope that this will help ease the financial strain our customers may be experiencing. We will be doing this automatically - you do not need to reach out to us to be included. If you are eligible, you will receive an email in the coming weeks and have the Bill Guarantee for last quarter and/or this quarter applied as a credit on your next bill.
Government Energy Bill Relief Rebate
We are also awaiting final confirmation from the state governments to apply the Energy Bill Relief Rebate to customer accounts. We will apply these to customer accounts as soon as possible once we receive this. You can learn more about this here.
Flexible payment options
Amber customers are usually better off over the long run with wholesale prices versus traditional retailers, however we acknowledge that the winter period can be a bit trickier for households to manage their bills.
If you’d like to learn more about our flexible payment options, including our financial hardship program, you can read more about these here.
Going forward
Like we saw in February this year in Victoria, times of volatility in the market are an opportunity for Amber battery owners to help stabilise the grid and lower the wholesale price by exporting their preserved energy when it’s needed most.
Learn more about the benefits of optimising your battery in line with wholesale prices, or check your battery’s compatibility with Amber’s SmartShift.
Amber’s non-battery customers also support the grid during market volatility. By decreasing and shifting your usage away from peak times, you help reduce the demand on the grid and bring the wholesale prices back down, while keeping excess profits out of the pockets of big energy companies.
Amber for EVs
Lastly, thanks to the involvement of our 175 alpha testers, the beta version of Amber’s EV charging optimisation will very soon be available for all customers with compatible Teslas and for those with compatible wall chargers in the coming months. We’ll have more news on this very shortly, but in the meantime you can keep up to date here, or be notified as soon as our Vehicle-to-Grid technology is ready by joining the V2G waitlist.
Cheers,
Chris (Co-founder and co-CEO)
Amber Electric
