AmberElectric 4+

I have both an Amber account and a PowerPal, and with the two together I’ve got a really great, clear picture of our household power consumption and have been able to make some smarter choices about when to start using the AC, when to cook, etc. Don’t get me wrong, being this granular isn’t a long-term strategy, but while the cost of living is astronomical and interest rates are high, every dollar counts. At a service level, I’m finding the rates particularly good for those who work from home, too. We use a steady stream of power during the day while most people are at work, so we benefit from better rates.

WISH LIST:
- Widgets! I mean, this should be a no brainer.
- Finer rate notifications, so perhaps a high and low rate alert - Additional authorised contacts on accounts - A simplified ‘live rate’ and notification app for AppleTV. Would be really handy to get a little alert while I’m watching something if the power is high or low priced, and be able to quickly check the live rate between shows.

The live prices and forecasts are terrific at helping you plan the use of power during the day but the automation does weird things like recharge the battery off the grid when prices have not reached their forecast low point for the night. Having the option to either set the times for recharge from the grid or to set price based charge/discharge thresholds would be great. There’s no point charging off the grid at 15c and selling back to the grid at 20c..the wear on battery doesn’t justify the price difference. But being able to limit charging from grid below, say, 10c (or if solar FUT is below 10c) and pushing to grid above a FIT of, say, 40c helps you preserve battery capacity until the FIT is really good.

Early days but big potential. Customisable alerts, interactive usage graphs and more data analysis options would be very helpful. Currently the app functionality is a bit limited as well as the ability so see things like account details and billing dates. I hope this will all be rolled out soon.

Another thing which I feel needs to be addressed. The wholesale price listed on the app is significantly higher than the AEMO 30 minute settlement price or even the 5 minute sport price. This price should show a breakdown of costs so we can understand what the charge is made up of. The network delivery charge and other components which are fixed costs should be made clear for example like a pie chart.

This should not be that hard to do as the data required to make an overall price is there, this is just exposing those individual figures which make up the overall price.