What are your best power-saving tips? $$$

[alishakihn]

With elec prices thru the roof, my boyfriend recently asked if he could turn off the fridge during peak time to save money. That's a really dumb idea, but I would like to hear some good ones. The stingier the better!

I always use the timers on my washer and drier to only run them at cheap times, and I never overfill the kettle (uses a surprising amount of power to boil a full kettle)

[John-T]

Lester,

My current situation,

I bought an AGL 3 phase Solar Battery Bundle in early 2022 and it cost about 24K at the time.

8.58Kw in PV

8.2Kw 3 phase Fronius Snap Inverter

1 Tesla Powerwall 2

Now you would think I would be sweet in this situation but my location in the Nepean Hawkesbury district closer to Windsor than Penrith consistently attracts clouds for reasons that defy logic, the PV is just not big enough to compensate for the cloudy days. I was lucky I got AGL to install the 8.58, they were insistent on a 6.6 system.

Currently 31 days in to this billing period and I owe $83 so far.

When you go for days with the battery barely making it to 40% charge is the answer so we rely on the grid.

It is just a crap area, the latest price hike & tariff export decrease has made the situation that much worse.

We have a hill which cuts off our sunlight approx 1 hour earlier than most in the district. 

At least before I could break even, anyway it is what it is and I thank you for your kind response. 👍

John

[Lester]

..

System sounds good, but yeah locations may not be the best for solar sometimes.

Adelaide is not too bad for its latitude, a couple of weeks ago we had the worst single day for our 11.23kw PV (no battery yet) in 2-1/2 years, made just 3.2kwh for the WHOLE day ! And a whopping 0.64kwh exported !!

Was really dark continuous cloud and raining all day.

Most winters days medium grey cloud / rainy etc we make around 20kwh, usually patchy cloud 30kwh, starting to make 40's some days now.

Summer is brilliant, 75kwh - 80kwh, and all year round sending around 75% to the grid.

I'm in 35 days now, and $151 showing (all up with supply and gst), but in SA we have to deal with 2c FIT and 53c peak, and that's for 13 hours a day, 0600 - 1000, and again the really bad one 1500 - midnight !!

As you say, falling FITs and increased tariffs are hurting people, even those with solar (only).

Can't wait to get a battery !!!

But I don't borrow anymore, want to save and pay for it by next autumn, push through spring and summer benefits, and say battery about May so it can be done and commissioned and still get the first year full battery rebate.

[NeilC]

Hey @Lester @John-T ,

Hope you both are well.

Les, think you should check your plan,

Peak charges apply 6am to 10am and 3pm to 1am and Shoulder (Solar sponge) charges apply 10am to 3pm every day.

Off peak charges apply at all other times.

Don't know why they don't mention the off peak times.

Charges : Peak 06:00 - 10:00 and 15:00 - 01:00, Shoulder (Solar sponge) 10:00 to 15:00 and Off Peak 01:00 - 06:00 every day.

This is not even true as the actual charges are:

Peak 00:00 - 01:00, 06:00 - 10:00, and 15:00 - 00:00

Shoulder 10:00 - 15:00

Off Peak 01:00 - 06:00

These are the actually daily charges Every Day.

And no they are not same times, think about it, CHARGES are daily charges.

Below is my report that I create from the Meter Data that AGL supplies me:

DATE	Meter	TYPE	DTotal	00:00>01:00	06:00>10:00	15:00>00:00	10:00>15:00	01:00>06:00
20250626	E1	General	4.264	0.13	0.295	2.88	0.052	0.907

If you total the amounts you will get the daily total, if you sum the first three times you will get my Peak Usage for the day, next time is my Shoulder and the last is my Off Peak.

Trying to calculate the Total  from the first statement means that you would have to get the first hour of the next day added (basically have a day that starts at 01:00 and ends at 01:00 the next day).

If you look at your Daily usage chart you will see that it starts at 12:00am and finishes at 11:00 pm, with the time being the start of an hour period (ie 00:00 - 01:00 or 12am till 1am).

If I look at my daily usage chart for the 26th June 2025 the figure shown is .13kwh.

Looking at my download data for the same day I have.

#E1	Usage	26/06/2025 00:00	26/06/2025 00:29	0.069	0	A
#E1	Usage	26/06/2025 00:30	26/06/2025 00:59	0.061	0	A

Add the two together it totals .13kwh.

However if I look at the NEM file SA Power Networks supplies for that same day I get a different result as that is in Eastern Standard time and always is (ie No Daylight Time).

As there is no DST at the moment I can see from 00:30 till 01:30 usage is that .13kwh.

[HLF]

I stopped using power saving switches as the standby of these switches was using more energy than the new appliances on standby without the switches. Then there is the cost of the initial purchase. That is a high cost to save a couple of watts.

[Lester]

@NeilC  . . . sorry I missed your reply 2 weeks ago, and only just got an email notification of your reply today.

My times are different to normal under the EV Night Saver plan.

[Ajae8]

If you have access to your meter, turn off the hot water. The water will remain hot for 2-3 days. Turn it back on when the water temp reduces to luke warm. Leave it on for 4-5 hours then turn it off again for 2-3 days. This saves heaps of energy and AGL hates it. LOL

[Easysaver]

That maybe correct for Heat pumps or electric systems, but not for solar
hot water systems. I haven't turned it on for a couple of years.