![\"Synergy](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/midday-saver.jpg\")
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If you live in Perth, or within a four-hour drive, I have some good news. \u00a0Synergy has changed its residential time-of-use tariff to 8 cents per kilowatt-hour for grid electricity from 9am to 3pm.\u00a0 They’ve also changed its name to “Midday Saver”.<\/p>\r\n
Personally, I’m just glad they went for a name that’s apt, rather than calling it Persephone or something.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
Whether Synergy’s Midday Saver will live up to its name and save money depends on what category you’re in:<\/p>\r\n
I’ve estimated the average cost of grid electricity for a typical WA home if they are on Midday Saver:<\/p>\r\n
![\"graph](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/cost-of-midday-saver-1.png\")
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As you can see, the best-suited homes for this tariff are battery powered.<\/p>\r\n
I’ll give more details below and show my workings so you can decide if it’s good news for you. \u00a0Like my uncle always used to say, “Never lick a gift horse in the mouth”.<\/p>\r\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/wa_takeit.jpg\")
Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, approves of the Midday Saver tariff.<\/p><\/div>\r\n
Most won’t regard an improved time-of-use tariff as anything amazing, but I’m still glad I can offer this small bit of good news.\u00a0 This is because WA has it tough when it comes to grid electricity:<\/p>\r\n
Before the recent run-up in wholesale electricity prices in the eastern states, whenever we felt sad about the state of the electricity sector here on the habitable side of the continent, we’d look at Western Australia to make us feel better.\u00a0 Now the eastern states are having a wholesale electricity crisis<\/a>, it’s your turn to laugh at us.\u00a0 I recommend laughing it up big time because you’ve got a long way to go until we’re even.<\/p>\r\n Most Western Australians live in the Synergy area, which is around the size of Uganda<\/a>.\u00a0 This map of proposed electric vehicle charging stations<\/a> shows it in blue:<\/p>\r\n These EV chargers should all be installed by 2024, so feel free to drive on through electric avenue<\/a> — kilowatts will take you further.<\/p><\/div>\r\n It’s not a small area.\u00a0 You can fit around three Tasmanias in the blue bit — if you don’t mind squishing them together to fill the gaps. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n If you are on-grid but don’t live in the blue area, then Horizon is your network operator.\u00a0 They don’t currently have time-of-use tariffs, so Synergy Midday Saver is not an option.<\/p>\r\n To use the Midday Saver time-of-use tariff, you need a smart meter. \u00a0If you still have an old meter and get a solar power system installed, it will be replaced with a smart one.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n The Midday Saver tariff<\/a> has three rates.\u00a0 The times and charges per kilowatt-hour, including GST, are:<\/p>\r\n These periods occur every day of the week, including public holidays.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n If you’d like that exact same information, but with coloured circles next to it, here’s the graphic Synergy uses with the prices tacked on in red:<\/p>\r\n On top of these per kilowatt-hour charges, there’s also a hefty daily supply charge of $1.20.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n The whole purpose of the Synergy Midday Saver tariff is to encourage people to shift electricity consumption from the late afternoon and evening to the middle of the day when solar energy makes it cheap and easy to supply.<\/p>\r\n Unless you run a home business and qualify for their Home Business Plan<\/a>, the only other choice available to households in the Synergy area is a flat tariff called the Synergy Home Plan (A1)<\/a> tariff.\u00a0 This charges the same amount per kilowatt-hour of grid electricity, no matter when it’s consumed.\u00a0 Its charges, including GST, are:<\/p>\r\n Whether a home will be better off with the flat tariff or Midday Saver mainly depends on when they use their grid electricity.<\/p>\r\n I’ll begin the comparison between the flat and time-of-use tariffs by looking at which would be better for a home that consumes a constant quantity of grid electricity.\u00a0 This is a stupid comparison because it never happens in real life, but it is a starting point.\u00a0 If we only consider the per kilowatt-hour charges, then a home that always consumed grid electricity constantly would pay an average of…<\/p>\r\n As you can see, the Midday Saver comes out ahead and is 15% cheaper.\u00a0 But this doesn’t take into account the higher daily supply charge for the Synergy Midday Saver tariff.\u00a0 For a home that consumes 5,000 kilowatt-hours of grid electricity per year, they would pay…<\/p>\r\n Midday Saver is still cheaper, but now only by 10%.\u00a0 But these results don’t really matter, as no one has a home that consumes an unvarying quantity of grid electricity.\u00a0 But if they did, they should definitely call it “Constant Cottage”.<\/p>\r\n Now I’ll consider a home with a more realistic electricity consumption pattern but without a solar power system.\u00a0 I’ll also call this a stupid comparison because not having solar panels in Perth<\/a> is pretty dim.\u00a0 This may seem unfair, as there can be perfectly valid reasons for not installing solar, but don’t worry — the imaginary person living in this imaginary house is a complete idiot.\u00a0 He drives an imaginary Hummer<\/a> and thinks imaginary Putin<\/a> is a great guy.\u00a0 He’s so stupid he even admires imaginary Trump<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n First, I’ll have to decide what this home’s average electricity consumption throughout the day is.\u00a0 This varies from household to household and depends on when people are home, if it has natural gas, a swimming pool, a swimming pool of liquid natural gas3<\/a><\/sup>, an EV, etc.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n To make things worse, I don’t have good data for Perth electricity consumption patterns.\u00a0 But, for a typical, non-solar home — which, in Perth, has a gas connection — the average power draw through the day should<\/em> look something like this:<\/p>\r\n For a home with this electricity consumption pattern, the average per kilowatt-hour charge would be:<\/p>\r\n That’s not a bad result for the Midday Saver as it comes out 1.8 cents cheaper.\u00a0 But because of daily supply charges, it’s not as good as it looks.\u00a0 Once they’re included, for a home that consumes 5,500 kilowatt-hours of grid electricity annually, there is only a one cent difference per kilowatt-hour consumed:<\/p>\r\n This makes the Midday Saver less than 3% cheaper than the flat tariff, but the $55 annual saving this gives is enough to make changing over worthwhile.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n This result is for a typical home.\u00a0 There will still be plenty of households where people are usually out during the day.\u00a0 If they don’t have any electrical loads they can shift to the daytime super off-peak period — or couldn’t be arsed to make the effort — they will be better off with a flat tariff.\u00a0 Fortunately, it often doesn’t take much effort to shift enough consumption to the daytime to make it worthwhile.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Now I’ll compare Synergy flat and Midday Saver tariffs for a home with a solar system.\u00a0 I’ll tell you now, for the typical solar home, Midday Saver doesn’t come out ahead.\u00a0 This is because Perth is a great location for solar power.\u00a0 It’s the sunniest capital<\/a> with an annual average of 3,212 hours of bright sunshine per year.\u00a0 That’s an average of 8.8 hours a day or 73% of the time the sun’s above the horizon.\u00a0 Over a year, Perth averages…<\/p>\r\n Thanks to this, Perth is one of the best cities in the world for solar energy generation.\u00a0 It’s on par with Los Angeles, which also has millions of people hanging out next to a desert, except the beer isn’t as good and the coffee is far worse.<\/p>\r\n If a typical Perth home that consumes around 5,500 kilowatt-hours a year installed a 6.6 kilowatt solar system<\/a> — and made no change to their electricity consumption patterns — their average grid power draw through the day would look something like this:\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Thanks to excellent solar energy output, the home normally consumes no grid electricity around the middle of the day when the sky is clear.\u00a0 But some grid consumption will occur on cloudy days or during brief periods when household power draw is high.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Thanks to solar power, instead of consuming around 5,500 kilowatt-hours of grid electricity per year, the home instead consumes around 3,500.\u00a0 That’s an average of 9.5 kilowatt-hours per day instead of 15.\u00a0 Electricity consumption during the Midday Saver peak period from 3 pm to 9 pm is one-third of their total grid electricity consumption.<\/p>\r\n If we only consider the average per kilowatt-hour charges, then this example home will pay…<\/p>\r\n The Midday saver averages out at 0.8 cents more.\u00a0 But it gets worse when daily supply charges are considered:<\/p>\r\n This example home would be around $40 a year worse off on the Synergy Midday Saver tariff.\u00a0 In most cases, solar households will be better off on the flat tariff. But if their peak period grid electricity consumption is under 28% of their total grid consumption, then Midday Saver can be cheaper.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Because many solar homes have already made an effort to shift electricity consumption to the daytime when it’s effectively far cheaper for them, there will be many that can save money by switching to the Midday Saver tariff.\u00a0 But to avoid disappointment, I do recommend checking that peak period grid consumption will only be a modest portion of total grid consumption before changing.<\/p>\r\n Most — but not all — homes with batteries should use Synergy’s Midday Saver, as it will be true to its name and save money.\u00a0 Provided the battery works and can meet a significant portion of evening demand, it’s likely to be worthwhile.\u00a0 If the battery, along with solar panels, supplies almost all household consumption from 3pm to 9pm, then the average per kilowatt-hour charge will be around the off-peak rate of 22 cents.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n The exception is if the household consumes very little grid electricity.\u00a0 This is not difficult to achieve with the right solar and battery setup, but it can also be done by having a very energy-efficient home or simply being extremely frugal.\u00a0 If you have a battery and consume an average of under 3.7 kilowatt-hours of grid electricity a day — around 1,300 kilowatt-hours per year — you’re likely to be better off on the flat tariff thanks to its lower daily supply charge.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n If you don’t have a battery and simply use very little grid electricity, you’ll probably have to consume an average of under 1 kilowatt-hour of peak electricity per day to be better off with the flat tariff.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Many assume a home battery<\/a> will allow peak charges to be avoided entirely, provided they don’t consume more energy than the battery stores or draw more power than it can supply.\u00a0 But, in practice, home battery systems normally only discharge energy if the home is already drawing a minimum amount of grid power.\u00a0 This varies but can be around 100 watts.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n It can cause a home with plenty of stored energy in its battery to use 0.6 kilowatt-hours of grid electricity over the six hour peak period.\u00a0 In most cases it would be less than this, thanks to solar providing some power early in the peak period and household consumption sometimes being below 100 watts, but this minimum grid draw before the battery discharges could potentially result in around $100 of peak period electricity consumption per year.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n The Synergy Midday Saver tariff can significantly improve the financial return from batteries.\u00a0 If one is charged with electricity that otherwise would have received a 2.5 cent DEBS solar feed-in tariff, then every kilowatt-hour of peak electricity consumption displaced by battery energy will save the household around 47.1 cents after accounting for typical battery losses.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Avoiding an average of 5 kilowatt-hours of peak consumption per evening would save a battery household $860 a year.\u00a0 But don’t get too carried away by this calculation.\u00a0 If a home would be better off on a flat tariff before it gets a battery, then the amount it would pay on that tariff should be the starting point for determining savings.<\/p>\r\n The actual return from using the Midday Saver tariff with a battery will depend on the battery characteristics and household electricity consumption patterns, but there will now be a considerable number of households in and around Perth where batteries will pay for themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n There will also be a large number of households where batteries don’t yet make financial sense, so don’t rush into it until you’re confident you’re likely to be happy with the results.\u00a0 My two main recommendations for tipping the odds of battery bliss in your favour are:<\/p>\r\n Neither of these points is likely to apply if you buy the cheapest battery available.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n The Midday Saver tariff also makes it possible for batteries to pay for themselves in homes without solar.\u00a0 The return isn’t as good, but is still high enough for it to potentially pay for itself.\u00a0 Charging a battery at the 8 cent super off-peak rate and discharging it during the peak period would save a household around 40.9 cents per kilowatt-hour.\u00a0 If it displaced an average of 5 kilowatt-hours of peak electricity use per day, it could save around $746 a year.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n While this is $114 less than if the battery was charged with solar energy that otherwise would have received a DEBS feed-in tariff, there will still be plenty who’ll consider that return worthwhile.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Once again, if the home would be paying less with a flat tariff before getting a battery, this should be used as the starting point for calculating savings.\u00a0 But homes without solar power are less likely to be better off on a flat tariff.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n It only makes sense to get a battery without solar if solar panels can’t be installed.\u00a0 This is because the return from solar power is far better.\u00a0 But there are plenty of people who own a home but don’t own a roof, so it can definitely make sense.<\/p>\r\n If you have an EV and can charge it<\/a> during the day — even only on weekends — it’s very likely to make Synergy’s Midday Saver worthwhile.\u00a0 While it’s cheaper to charge off solar, on cloudy days you can be confident none of the electricity used to charge your vehicle’s battery pack from 9am to 3pm will cost you more than 8 cents per kilowatt-hour.<\/p>\r\n On average, passenger cars in WA are driven under 250km a week.\u00a0 As nearly every new EV these days has greater range, it means most owners will be able to get by with only charging on weekends if required.\u00a0 A single-phase home EV charger<\/a> can provide a Tesla Model 3 with over 250km of range in one 6 hour super off-peak period.\u00a0 Less energy efficient EVs may only gain around 210km range in that time and so may require more than one charging period per week. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Whether a home has solar panels or not, shifting electricity consumption to the middle of the day can make the Synergy Midday Saver tariff worthwhile.\u00a0 This can be as simple as turning the dishwasher on in the morning after 9pm or putting the pool pump on a timer.\u00a0 More involved steps can include:<\/p>\r\n WA has the least expensive domestic gas in the country, but that doesn’t mean it’s cheap.\u00a0 Going on the Midday Saver tariff is a great opportunity to get off gas, even if a home doesn’t have solar, because…<\/p>\r\n These natural gas burners on the SpaceX Starship<\/a> can cook your food faster than an induction stove — but I don’t recommend installing them in your kitchen.\u00a0 (Image: Jack Beyer’s twitter<\/a>.)<\/p><\/div>\r\n Both the flat tariff and the Midday Saver have high daily supply charges of over $1.\u00a0 High supply charges aren’t good<\/a>, but what is really stupid is the Synergy Midday Saver has one higher than the flat tariff.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n This means people who have batteries and low grid electricity consumption are incentivised to use the flat tariff and then have no incentive to make sure they use their stored battery energy during the peak period.\u00a0 This is so stupid it’s causing my vocabulary, which is normally replete with adjectives, to seize up and fail.\u00a0 It’s just stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.<\/p>\r\nThe Synergy Area<\/h2>\r\n
![\"Synergy](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/synergy_map.jpg\")
Smart Meter Required<\/h2>\r\n
Synergy Midday Saver Times & Charges<\/h2>\r\n
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![\"Synergy](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/synergy_charges.jpg\")
<\/p>\r\nSynergy Flat Tariff Rates<\/h2>\r\n
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A Stupid Comparison — Constant Electricity Consumption<\/h2>\r\n
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If the home used less than 885 kilowatt-hours of grid electricity per year, then the flat tariff’s lower daily supply charge would make it the cheapest.\u00a0<\/p>\r\nA Stupid Comparison — No Solar Household<\/h2>\r\n
![\"Average](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/wa_typical.jpg\")
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Solar Household Comparison<\/h2>\r\n
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![\"Average](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/wa_rooftop.jpg\")
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Battery Homes<\/h2>\r\n
Battery Limitations<\/h2>\r\n
Midday Saver Improves Battery Economics<\/h2>\r\n
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A Battery Without Solar Panels<\/h2>\r\n
EVs & Midday Saver<\/h2>\r\n
Load Shifting Can Make Midday Saver Pay<\/h2>\r\n
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A Good Reason To Get Off Gas<\/h2>\r\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/wa_burners.webp\")
Synergy Needs To Improve The Midday Saver Tariff<\/h2>\r\n