How to read your power bill

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Let’s talk about power bills… It might not be your favourite topic, but knowing how to read and extract information from your bill is crucial to understanding how you can save on electricity.

After receiving an electricity bill, most of us simply look at what we owe and begrudgingly pay up. But there’s plenty of useful information on your bill that can help you save, so it’s worth taking the time to read your bills carefully. Below we dissect each component of your power bill in detail to help you better understand your costs and potential savings.

What makes up an electricity bill?

Electricity bills are issued by your energy retailer, and detail how much money you owe to your provider based on your energy usage costs for the month or quarter, depending on your billing cycle. As part of the Better Bills Guideline, which came into effect on September 30, 2023, all energy companies are required to show specific details on electricity and gas bills to help consumers understand their usage and costs. Some of these key requirements include simplified language, easy to understand design, best offer messaging and placing the most important information in the most prominent position.

These requirements are typically encompassed into the the following sections on your bill: account information, electricity cost summary, best offer messaging, energy usage summary, plan information, payment options and metering details.

To explain these parts of your bill, we’ll be using an example bill from Alinta Energy – an electricity and gas retailer which operates across New South Wales, Victoria, south-east Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.

Account Information

The first part of your bill summarises all the relevant information about your account. You can see that it includes information such as the issue date for this bill, your account details, your National Meter Identifier (NMI), and how to contact Alinta Energy for customer service, as well as your network distributor for faults and emergencies.

Electricity Cost Summary

This summarises the total amount owing on your latest bill and the payment due date. The bill in this example is for $47.12, with a due date of September 29, 2023.

Best Offer Messaging

This section of the bill is a new addition for households in NSW, SEQ, SA, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania and highlights to customers whether they could be saving on their energy bill by switching to their retailer’s deemed ‘best offer’. This best offer is determined using customers’ past usage, typically over a 12 month period. This information is a legal requirement on bills, enforced by the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) and must also include details on how to switch to this plan if customers wish to be on the better deal.

In the example below, the customer could be saving $157.44 a year by switching from their current offer to Alinta Energy’s best offer for them.

Energy Usage Summary

This part of the bill breaks down your electricity usage, illustrating your energy habits and how you compare to households in your area. This is the part of the power bill that most of us would be familiar with.

To the left you can see a graph depicting the total monthly electricity usage, as well as a daily average for usage and a comparison of the same time last year. On the right, you can see the average daily cost, total greenhouse gas emissions and electricity usage compared to other households in your area. This helps to visualise whether your electricity usage habits are getting better or worse.

Plan Information

In this section you will find the details regarding your plan, including the plan name, plan features and any benefits, such as pay on time or direct debit discounts.

Payment Options

This part is usually at the footer of the first page of your bill and is fairly self-explanatory. At the bottom right, you have a recap of what’s owed on this bill. Above, you have all the information you need about paying your bill. It includes direct debit, paying in person at the post office, mailing your payment, and paying using a credit card or BPAY by phone or internet. Simply follow these steps and you shouldn’t have any difficulty paying your bill.

Metering Details

This section generally contains the nitty-gritty details that many of us likely pass over. Nevertheless, some of these tidbits of information could be extremely helpful to know about when looking to reduce energy usage. In this section of your bill, you’ll typically find the following:

• Usage charge: The first column shows the electricity usage charges. On this bill, we can see the customer has been charged for peak, off-peak and shoulder rates.
• Supply charge: The supply charge is a daily fixed fee that applies regardless of how much electricity you use, if any.
• Reading type: This refers to whether someone actually read your meter, or whether it was estimated – in this case, it was actually read.
• Quantity: The total usage taken from the meter read which has been used to calculate the final costs of the bill.

Looking for a better electricity deal?

The table below shows a selection of some of the cheapest power plans on our database in each state.

Are gas bills different to electricity bills?

Even if you pay for gas and electricity with the same provider, you’ll still receive two different bills. So are gas bills any different to electricity bills? Not really. Your gas bill should be virtually identical to your electricity bill, with a couple of important variations:

• Natural gas is measured in megajoules, so instead of seeing your electricity usage noted in kWh, you’ll see your gas usage measured in MJ.
• Your gas distribution network will be different to your electricity distribution network, so don’t worry if you see a different company name.

How can I reduce my power bill?

Understanding how to read your power bills is only half the battle – the other half is acting on the information you are given. For example, if you read your bill and realise you have low electricity usage and a large portion of your bill is from supply charges, then you may need to get out there and find a deal better suited to low-use households. Customers on a time of use tariff can also use their electricity bill to get an idea for when they’re using the most electricity, helping identify opportunities to reduce electricity usage. You can also use your usage information to see whether or not electricity bills are increasing. If they are, take a moment and think what could be causing it and whether there are any other ways to reign in your usage.

Paying close attention to the electricity rates you pay will also allow you to watch out for any sneaky price increases from your provider. Your energy retailer will need to inform you of any price increases at least five business days beforehand, but you’ll need to keep your eyes peeled.

If after all this you’re still struggling with your bill, then perhaps it’s time to see what else is out there. Check out our customer satisfaction ratings or start comparing electricity providers in your area below.

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Image credits: Alinta Energy.