QTPA Member Alert | POWER & ENERGY TARIFF SAVINGS (6/8/2012)

POWER & ENERGY TARIFF SAVINGS

After discussions with a number of Turf Queensland producers, we have contacted a company called Power Select to act as a consultant on electricity supply services to the Queensland Turf Industry.  This company has worked with a couple of our member turf producers already and the correspondence below is self-explanatory.  To undertake this review he requires a copy of your latest electricity account.  It is interesting that he believes it may be beneficial to remain individual rather than collective bargaining.

To action this it is up to you and in your hands directly, all of the information is below just fax or scan copies of your accounts to him with appropriate contact details.

“If your members would like for me to audit their electricity supply accounts, please have them e-mail or fax copies of their accounts to me and I shall come back to them with my thoughts……I have no fees or charges applicable for the initial audit of the accounts. When I present the findings of my initial audit to the account holder then I shall outline any fees applicable for me to undertake any changes to their accounts that may be necessary”.  The details are:

Troy Postle

Owner / Manager

POWER SELECT

‘delivering electric results’

P 0433 230 330

F 07 3395 2566

E troy.postle@powerselect.com.au

“Jim,

Based upon the Turf Farms that I have looked at in recent times, it would be my opinion that Turf Farms would be best suited to Tariff and possibly not moving to the contract electricity market….however this will be based upon a site-by-site scenario….

On the contract electricity market, the more customers you have to tender then the more negotiating power that you have….however on the Tariff market it is more about auditing each individual account on its own merit and then making the necessary changes to ensure that the most economical charges are applicable to the individual accounts.

The difficulty with Turf Farms on the contract market is that if the site is above 100,000kWh / annum are deemed as being ‘Large Market’ sites and therefore are placed upon a Demand-based Network Charge Category by the electricity Network Companies (Energex in South East QLD and Ergon Energy in Regional QLD)…..Demand is the highest draw of power in any half hour period during the billing cycle, measured in kW and a billable component on the contract market for Large Market customers. The problem with Demand is that Turf Farms would have large bore-pumps to take water from creeks / dams / underground water tables etc for irrigation purposes and due to short operation hours of these pumps the Demand at the site is not commensurate with the electricity consumption, therefore the Network Charge component of the account becomes excessive due to the Demand charges.

The electricity market is a very complex one and changes on a regular basis, as I have found over the past 13-years……the short answer to your question is yes, the more the merrier for negotiations on the Contract Market, however we would have to undertake the individual account audits to see if any of the Turf Farms even see a benefit on the Contract Market once all of the Tariff options have been taken into account.

 Troy Postle, Owner / Manager”

REGARDS,

Jim Vaughan

Chief Executive Officer