Reference price

The reference price is how much a representative customer would pay over the course of a year on default prices that are set by the regulator. A representative customer is essentially a hypothetical customer who consumes a certain amount of electricity, as defined by the government.

As an example:

• A reference price of $1,000 per year applies to a representative customer on a single-rate tariff that uses 3,900kWh annually in your region.
• An energy retailer says that their energy plan is 5% less than the reference price for that type of representative customer.
• That means that this type of customer would pay $950 per year.
• We refer to this as an estimated annual cost for this customer type and usage amount.

The reference price is useful for comparing plans but it doesn’t take into consideration your exact situation so you may pay more, or less depending on your specific usage.

Representative customer basically means a typical customer that:

• has typical energy usage
• lives in a particular region
• is on a particular tariff.

Your tariff refers to how your electricity usage charges are calculated. Most customers are on a single-rate tariff, which means their rates don’t change depending on when the electricity is used throughout the day.

Reference prices differ depending on residential tariffs. You can view a reference price comparison for other tariff types when you compare energy plans.

Note: for small to medium commercial customers there is only one reference price. This is based on a single-rate tariff only.

When you compare energy plans and enter your address, we’ll show you:

• the reference price for your region
• how our electricity prices compare to that reference price.