Hi Sandy,
Power bills are complex now, and while generally peoples inquiries like this boil down to energy pricing increasing so much in recent years, here are some things to start checking to be sure nothing wierd is going on.
If an old analogue meter that needs reading, are the bills actual reads or estimated ?
This is on your bills.
If a meter read contractor can't get access to such a meter, the estimates can be pretty high.
You can send a reading in to correct if this applies.
If you have a digital smart meter, there is no meter readings and the figures are usually very perfect.
If a recent increase, check billing has not changed, effective plan, tariffs,daily supply charge etc.
Usually one is notified if a change is happening with a plan changing, or tarrif / daily supply chare etc, but worth checking first.
You bill split up, it SHOULD show where the power is roughly used, eg normal times tariffs, or off leak / CL (controlled load) for a HWS if applcable etc. Daily supply charge should be stable for each month.
What looks high ?? Probably the general usage . . .
You can use a simple power point meter to read how much power items in the home are using, relativley cheap, about $20 or so, move it around to any plug in heaters / fans etc, when fridge and / or freezer running, stove, microwave, kettle, other such.
Most have the energy rating on their label somewhere, eg a kettle might be 2kw, but only used for say 5 mins, = 166w of power.
If you have time of use plan, where there are cheaper times to use power, and much more costly times, you should look at the possibility of timing things to work in the cheaper tariff times.
If single rate, this is not important.
If you have an electric HWS, with the CL pricing seems unusally high, and this is on CL in cheap shoulder times, try and get a reading on that during operation to ensure it's working within its power rating, eg most single element HWS are 3.6kw, but can vary.
It should have a seperate reading on your meter, or even a seperate meter in most cases, if it comes on overnight you can take a reading before and after the times it comes on / off, and calculate the power used on the CL tariff (or other).
Ours used to be about $1.40 a night.
AIr cond units if hard wired can be checked same, turn on unit and get a 15 min read while it's 'working' cooling or heating, and then multiply x 4, multiply by tariff for the time of use (or single rate) and you have an approx cost for what it uses under load per hour.
It's most likely just simply high power pricing, possibly a wrong plan or retailer for your needs, it could be an applance gone bad and chewing up power, or in very remote cases a meter can also become faulty ... it's very rare though.
If you can use the cheaper times to use power, but not always possible or convienient.
Small things can help, LED light globes through the high use lights is a good start.
Hopefully this can help you start working out ways to get your bills lower.
