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Energy Umpire Pty Ltd
26 April 2018
2 May 2018
The Hon Daniel Andrews MLA
Premier of Victoria
1 Treasury Pl
Melbourne VIC 3002
By email: daniel.andrews@parliament.vic.gov.au
Dear Mr. Premier,
An Option to the Bill Busting Bonus that would save the Government $40M
I have worked in the energy sector for over 30 years having been Chairman of Southern Hydro and energy consulting firm Oakley Greenwood and Panel Member, Energy Reform Implementation Group that reported to COAG.
Out of frustration with the exploitation of electricity and gas customers by the energy retailers in 2014, I established Energy Umpire. Energy Umpire is a 100% Victorian owned company that independently compares every energy plan for customers (see attachment).
Energy Umpire can save your government $40 million by using our service. This is based on Energy Umpire providing the cost comparison service for one million customers by charging $10 per household only if they meet a savings threshold, otherwise it’s free. Those with less savings can elect to be free or pay $10 and still be switched with a lesser saving, but overall they would be saving money.
Energy Umpire can save customers around 50% more by comparing electricity and gas not just electricity.
The Bill Busting Bonus Scheme
On April 22 you announced that “All Victorian households will receive a $50 bill busting bonus if they seek out a better electricity deal on Victoria’s Energy Compare website”
Bill Busting scheme – household savings
For the $48M that you have budgeted to spend, it is unknown how many switches will occur. There is no way to be sure, but a 10-20% switch rate would be our expectation.
The savings by households assuming there are one million electricity switches at $330/switch would be $330M. If 20% of claimants actually switch, the customer savings would be $66M.
Energy Umpire Proposal – household savings
The Energy Umpire proposal gives savings per household of around $500 rather than $330 per switch because Energy Umpire switch gas as well as electricity for a single fee of $10. Using the same assumption of one million households participating, customer savings would total $500M compared with our estimated savings of $66M under the Government’s Bill Busting Scheme.
Energy Umpire stands ready to support the Government
Energy Umpire can be part of the delivery of your objective of permanent lower electricity and gas prices for Victorian households and small businesses.
We are ready to work through the details with you. It may be for example that you wish to apply your bill busting bonus to customers that switch through Energy Umpire instead of or as well as Energy Compare.
Yours faithfully,
Alan Rattray,
Founder Energy Umpire
alan@energyumpire.com.au
LinkedIn
energyumpire.com.au
Attachment
Energy Umpire
- Offers a completely independent comparison service to Energy Customers in Victoria. We compare every available plan from every supplier.
- Scrapes retailer websites to access energy price schedules and cross checks with Energy Compare.
- Our current charge is $10 whether the household or small business has electricity only or electricity and gas.
- The fee is refundable if the savings are less than $200 p.a.
- The customer either emails their bill or a photo of their bill to us.
- We analyse the bill and provide a savings report and price comparison to the customer.
- We provide switching advice.
- We gain ongoing access to the customer’s bills using our automatic smart bill delivery service.
- We monitor the customer’s ongoing bills to ensure that they remain on the cheapest price always.
- We can say from experience that there are errors on vic.gov.au/victorianenergycompare, the results can be difficult to interpret and retailers can subscribe customers to sub optimal plans. We also expect that retailers will price low to capture customers and increase prices later.
Want to know more about Energy Umpire?