WA Electricity Price Increases Announced for 2014
The WA State government's budget was handed down today (8th May 2014), with an announcement that WA Electricity Prices increases would be 4.5% from the 1st July 2014.
Of course, this headline figure only applies to residences and other "Non Contestable" customers (those businesses will relatively low consumption). Other business tariffs will rise 10%.
The budget did also highlight worse to come, with Residential and Non Contestable tariffs set to rise 7% next year and Contestable Business Tariffs set to rise by up to 28% in 2015.
The full list of Electricity Tariff increases in WA for 2014:
What can I do ?
The increases shown about are difficult enough to swallow in their own right but the real pain is that these are on top of significant compounded increases over the past five years.
The natural question is what are the options ?
Residential and "Non Contestable" Small Business Customers
Unfortunately, the WA State Government owned Synergy has a monopoly on electricity supply in the South West of Western Australia (including Perth and the metro area) for residential customers. Horizon Power (the other state owned retailer) enjoys the same in the rest of the state. This limits any choice in selecting a new Electricity Retailer.
Fortunately Solar Power represents a real alternative for residences and small businesses and these price increase just make the case for Solar even more compelling.
There is some good news for residences in the Natural Gas market though with choice recently being introduced. More recently, Infinite Energy has partnered with Kleenheat Gas to offer a 10% discount to standard Natural Gas Tariffs and a$50 credit on the first bill. Details are available here.
"Contestable" Business Customers"
If a business uses more the 50 MWh of electricity per year (around $12,500), then they now have an alternative choice to Synergy for their electricity supply. Infinite Energy Electricity generally offers lower tariffs to Contestable business customers in Perth and the South West of Western Australia.
Of course, these lower electricity tariffs can be combined with the installation of a Solar Power system at the premises thus cutting a business's electricity spend considerably.
See here for 2015 WA Electricity Tariff increases.
