Case study
From $180 to $18 per month:
A QLD family’s success story
Lucy, QLD
KEY METRICS
$2,160
Annual energy savings
1.0t
Anyone living in Australia will tell you that an air conditioner is non-negotiable.
Having just had their first baby, installing an air conditioner was one of the first upgrades that Lucy and her partner made when they moved into their new home in Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
“We had solar panels, so we didn’t think twice about running the air con all day to keep the house comfortable for the baby.”
That was until the energy bills started coming.
“Our bills averaged $180 to $200 a month, even with solar panels. We knew that we were using more power, but we soon noticed that our retailer was also hiking our tariff. It was a double-whammy,” says Lucy.
Gaining situational awareness with EnergyFlex
Lucy’s partner, a systems engineer, set out to find a more controlled, scientific approach to energy management, with the ability to monitor their household energy consumption and get insights into their usage. The EnergyFlex app fit the bill.
“Until we started using the EnergyFlex app we did not realise that we should view our energy use as a valuable asset, just like our car. We didn’t realise that the timing of our energy use would have the biggest impact on our bills and environmental footprint.” Lucy says.
Once they had a better understanding of their daily usage patterns, the family started changing their energy habits to align with renewable generation. That’s when their bills started plummeting.
“Our last energy bill was for $18.80! That was three months ago, and we haven’t received a bill since – probably because we’re in the negative and our retailer doesn’t want to send them to us,” Lucy laughs.
Once they had a better understanding of their daily usage patterns, the family started changing their energy habits to align with renewable generation. That’s when their bills started plummeting.
Making hay when the sun shines
Not only did EnergyFlex help Lucy’s family to reduce their bills, but it also helped them to optimise the use of their solar panels.
“We stopped exporting energy back to the grid when we realised that we’d need to sell four times more energy into the grid than the amount of energy we bought from the grid to break even. We would never have known this if we hadn’t been using the app.”
That single insight convinced the family to make the most of the energy being generated by their solar panels during the day, which allowed them to reduce their grid consumption in the evenings.
Through basic behaviour changes – like doing the washing during the day and never in the evenings, or prepping meals on weekends when power is generally cheaper – the family had more time to spend together in the evenings. “It’s been wonderful not having to cook dinner every night!”
Planet-saving habit shifting
The family has also drastically reduced the amount of carbon emissions they produce since shifting their usage – from about a tonne of carbon a quarter to a couple of kilograms.
“We saw the impact of these small changes on our app dashboard almost immediately. Once we’d exhausted all the ‘no-cost actions’, we used the money we’d saved to make some low-cost upgrades, like installing a timer switch on our hot water system so that it would only heat up during the daytime, and only charging our electric vehicle when the sun was shining.”
Time-of-use tariffs come into play
Having shifted most of their energy consumption through no-cost and low-cost behaviour changes, the family could take advantage of time-of-use tariffs, which reward these energy-smart decisions.
“Just knowing that we’d be charged ludicrous tariffs for using energy in the evenings (and next-to-nothing for using energy during the day) was enough to make us think twice before flipping a switch. As long as everyone has clean underwear, there’s no reason to do laundry at night. It’s amazing what you can achieve by changing a few basic behaviours and understanding how to use the system.”
Nothing to lose
“There’s not much more we can do; we’ve pretty much maxed out all our options,” Lucy laughs. “But with no energy bills and very little carbon emissions, we’re in a good place.”
“You can radically reduce your bills by simply changing your behaviours. Plus, you’ll also be helping the planet. The energy market is complex, so it’s nice to have a tool like EnergyFlex that teaches you – in simple language – how to get the system to work in your favour because that level of awareness has been missing from a consumer perspective. You’ve got nothing to lose in signing up, but potentially a lot to gain in cost and carbon savings.”
