LEARN MORE ABOUT ELECTRICITY BILLS, METER DATA AND TARIFFS

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Energy Usage

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To find out more about smart meters, meter data and your electricity bill information.
To find out more about your electricity plan, what tariffs are and why they’re important.

If you need help finding where each of these pieces of information are on your bills, you can check out our guide with annotated examples here.

Energy usage lightning bolt Energy usage

SunSPOT uses the information you provide to tailor your estimate to your property. The more detail you can add, the more accurate your estimate will be.

  • If you have an interval or smart meter, you can request 12 months of your electricity usage data from your Distributed Network Service Provider (DNSP) and upload it to SunSPOT. This will produce the most accurate estimates possible.

    At this stage, SunSPOT only accepts NEM12 format meter data which your DNSP will send to you upon request. SunSPOT cannot accept data in other formats from energy retailers or other apps.

  • You do have a smart meter if any of these are true:

    • you live in Victoria,

    • you have had solar installed in the past 3 years, or

    • you have a Time of Use tariff (you will see Peak and Off-Peak charges on your bill).

    You do not have a smart meter if someone comes to check your electricity meter readings for your bill.

  • Your Distributed Network Service Provider (DNSP) is different to your electricity retailer. You can find your DNSP named under “Faults and Emergencies” on your electricity bill.

    The DNSP is the organisation that owns and controls the physical infrastructure used to distribute electricity (like power poles and wires).

  • We have a whole section on this website dedicated to helping you find and access your smart meter data here.

    All you need is your DNSP and your NMI number, and you can find both on your most recent electricity bill.

  • For residential users, adding information from multiple bills (up to a full year) helps SunSPOT understand how your electricity usage changes across the seasons.

    Commercial users can add information from one recent bill. To get the most accurate estimate, commercial users should upload 12 months of real meter data in NEM12 format.

    Check out this page for help understanding your bill, including a guide to finding the information SunSPOT needs.

Electricity plan bill icon Electricity plan

Adding your own electricity tariffs or rates allows SunSPOT to calculate a more tailored estimate of your potential bill and savings with solar.

Your electricity plan, or tariff, is the rate you are charged by your retailer for providing electricity. There are a number of different common tariff types, with Flat or Single Rate and Time of Use being the most common for residential properties. Commercial or small business properties may also have a Demand Charge as part of their electricity plan.

A feed-in tariff (FiT) is commonly offered to retail customers with a solar system, and is the rate that the customer is credited for any solar energy that isn’t used on-site and is exported to the grid. FiTs are not guaranteed by every retailer.

  • Some plans include feed-in tariffs that vary depending on how much solar has been exported already in a day. Most variable volume feed-in tariffs apply a high initial rate up to a certain amount of exported solar, and after this threshold is met a lower rate is applied.

    For example, if your solar system exported 10kWh in one day and you had a variable volume feed in tariff that credited 10c/kWh for the first 3kWh and then 5c/kWh for the rest, you would receive ($0.10 x 3 + $0.05 x 7) = $0.65.

  • Some feed-in tariff (FiT) rates vary by the time of day, meaning that different rates are applied to exported solar depending on when it was exported.

    For example, a time of use FiT might apply a rate of 3c/kWh for all solar exported between 8am - 3pm each day, and 10c/kWh for export between 3pm - 5pm.