The short answer
To save money on electricity, fix the big levers first
Most energy saving advice tells you to switch off standby lights and the second fridge. Those habits are fine, but they save a few dollars while the levers that save hundreds get one line. Your bill is set by four things: the rate you are on compared with the regulated reference price, the fixed daily supply charge you pay no matter what, when you run big loads on a time-of-use tariff, and the concessions or rebates you may not be claiming. This guide ranks the levers by real dollars, so you spend your effort where the money is.
Here is the core takeaway in one line: the fastest way to save money on electricity in Australia is to get onto a competitive plan measured against the reference price and to claim every concession you are entitled to, because those two moves save hundreds, while the classic habit tips save only a few dollars. The reason is structural. A fixed daily supply charge sits under every bill, so cutting usage has a floor it cannot break through, and the rate you are charged is set by your plan and your network, not by switching off the standby light. Get the rate and the concessions right first. Then, and only then, the small habits are worth tidying up.
Reframe the assumption: energy "tips" feel productive because they are visible and immediate, so we reach for the powerboard. But the bill is not mostly made of standby loads. It is made of a rate you may never have re-checked and concessions you may never have claimed. The most powerful tip is the least dramatic one: open a comparison, put in your real usage, and look up your state concession. Ten minutes, no lifestyle change, hundreds of dollars.
The levers, ranked by dollars
Where the savings actually come from
Same effort spent on the wrong lever saves nothing. This is the order that matters, biggest dollar impact first, smallest last.
The single biggest lever. Most households sit on an old or default plan and never re-check it against the DMO or VDO. A 10-minute comparison at your real usage often beats every habit change combined.
State concession schemes and one-off relief credits go straight off the bill, yet many eligible households never apply. This is free money with no behaviour change required.
The fixed daily supply charge is a third of a low-usage bill and a rounding error on a big one. Picking a plan with the right supply charge for how much you use can outweigh months of saving.
If you are on time-of-use, running the dishwasher, dryer or pool pump outside the evening peak shifts kilowatt-hours to a cheaper rate. Real, but smaller than the rate and concession levers.
The classic tips. Worth doing, never the headline. Standby loads and LED globes trim the usage portion only, and the supply charge sits underneath untouched.
The pattern is clear: the top of this list is about the rate you pay and the support you claim, not the power you switch off. Most tips content starts at the bottom.
The blind spot
Why most "money saving tips" underperform
Search for how to save on energy and you will get the same list every time: switch off standby, swap to LED globes, unplug the second fridge, take shorter showers. None of it is wrong. All of it is small. There is a behavioural reason these tips dominate the advice and the levers that matter do not.
Tips optimise for the visible and the trivial. Switching off a powerboard is something you can do right now, you can see the little red light go dark, and it feels like progress. Re-checking your plan against the reference price is invisible, slightly intimidating and easy to put off, so it never happens. The advice follows the feeling, not the dollars.
Think of it like a household budget. Cancelling one streaming service feels responsible, but if you are quietly overpaying hundreds a year on rent, the streaming service is a rounding error. Energy works the same way. The rent of your bill is the plan you are on and the supply charge underneath it. The streaming service is the standby load. Most tips content spends all its energy on the streaming service.
The trap is that doing the small things can make you feel finished. People run through every classic tip, feel virtuous, and never re-check the plan, so they keep overpaying hundreds while congratulating themselves on the powerboard. The fix is to invert the order: do the big levers first, then mop up the small ones.
How the bill is actually built
Expert analysis: the four parts of your bill
The rate, measured against the reference price
Every plan you can buy is quoted against a regulated reference price. In New South Wales, south-east Queensland and South Australia that is the Australian Energy Regulator’s Default Market Offer (DMO); the 2025-26 prices apply until 30 June 2026, with the DMO 2026-27 taking over from 1 July 2026. Victoria runs its own Victorian Default Offer (VDO), set by the Essential Services Commission. The reference price is a cap and a yardstick, not a deal. Many households sit on an old or default plan paying close to it, when sharper plans sit well below. The gap between your plan and the best plan for your usage is, for most people, the single largest saving available, and it usually runs into the hundreds.
The fixed supply charge you pay no matter what
Underneath the rate sits a daily supply charge, a fixed fee just to stay connected, commonly around 90 c to $1.20 a day. That is roughly $330 to $440 a year before you use a single kilowatt-hour. This is why usage tips have a floor: you can switch off every appliance and the supply charge is still there. For a low-usage flat that fixed charge can be a third of the bill, so the plan with the lowest supply charge often wins. For a high-usage family home it is a rounding error and the usage rate is everything. Same market, opposite plan.
The timing of your big loads
If you are on a time-of-use tariff, your rate is higher in the evening peak and cheaper off-peak, so when you run things matters. Shifting the dishwasher, dryer or pool pump out of the peak window moves those kilowatt-hours to a cheaper rate. This is a real lever, but a modest one, usually tens of dollars a year, and it only works on time-of-use. On a single-rate (flat) tariff the price is the same all day, so timing changes nothing on your bill. Check which tariff you are on before you rearrange your routine.
The concessions and rebates you may not be claiming
Finally, support that comes straight off the bill. Every state and territory runs concession schemes for eligible households (pensioners, concession card holders, families and people on hardship support). On top of that, the federal Energy Bill Relief Fund credited up to $150 to electricity accounts across 2025 in two automatic $75 instalments; that federal program ended on 31 December 2025, with no universal national replacement confirmed for 2026, so the standing thing to check is your state concession. Many eligible households simply never apply, which makes this lever pure upside: real money, no behaviour change, often unclaimed.
Interactive explainer
See the rate lever in dollars
Pick your state and set your annual usage. The estimator ranks real single-rate plans on the market, shows the cheapest one for that usage, and the gap to the dearest plan on the same network, the saving the top lever is worth.
Live plan prices are not available right now. You can still compare electricity plans for your address.
The lever almost nobody uses
Concessions and rebates: free money off the bill
This is the lever with the best ratio of dollars to effort, because it asks nothing of your habits and money comes straight off the bill. Yet eligible households leave it on the table every year, usually because they assume they do not qualify or never get around to applying.
State and territory concessions
Every state and territory funds an ongoing energy concession for eligible households, typically pensioners, holders of a Health Care Card or Pensioner Concession Card, families on certain payments, and people on hardship arrangements. The benefit applies automatically once you register your card details with your retailer, but it is not retrospective, so the sooner you register, the sooner it starts. If your circumstances have changed, it is worth re-checking, because eligibility is broader than many people assume.
Federal bill relief, and what replaced it
The federal Energy Bill Relief Fund credited up to $150 to electricity accounts across 2025 in two automatic $75 instalments, applied directly without any application. That federal program ended on 31 December 2025, and no universal national replacement has been confirmed for 2026. So the support that keeps running is the state concession, which means the action is the same regardless: confirm whether you qualify and make sure your details are registered with your retailer.
Hardship and one-off help
If you are behind on a bill, every retailer must offer a hardship program with payment plans and protections, and states run emergency relief grants for households in acute difficulty. These are not savings in the budgeting sense, but they prevent the disconnection and late fees that quietly make energy more expensive for the people who can least afford it.
What chasing the wrong lever costs
How tip-chasing becomes overpaying
Spending effort on the small levers while ignoring the big ones is not harmless. It feels like saving while the real money keeps leaking:
They do every tip and never re-check the plan
A household switches off standby, swaps to LED globes and takes shorter showers, then feels finished. Meanwhile they have been on the same plan for three years, paying close to the reference price, when a sharper plan sits hundreds of dollars below. Every habit win is dwarfed by the rate they never re-checked.
They never claim the concession they qualify for
An eligible household assumes the concession is for someone else, or means more paperwork than it saves. So they pay full price on a benefit that would have come straight off the bill, year after year, for the sake of a 10 minute registration.
They reshuffle their routine on the wrong tariff
Someone reads that off-peak saves money, so they run the dishwasher at midnight. But they are on a single-rate tariff, where the price is identical all day. The effort buys nothing, because timing only pays on a time-of-use plan.
They read the percentage, not the dollars
"This plan is 12% below the reference price" sounds decisive, but that percentage is measured at the regulator’s model usage, not theirs. At their real usage the saving can shrink, and the headline number leads them to a plan that is not actually their cheapest.
The insider insight
The cheapest household is not the most frugal one
Here is the part the tips lists never say out loud. You can do every classic energy-saving move, switch off every standby load, swap every globe, run the dryer at midnight, and still overpay by hundreds, simply because you never re-checked your plan against the DMO or VDO. Frugality at the powerboard cannot fix a rate that is set in your contract. The most diligent saver on the street can pay more than the neighbour who does none of it but happens to be on a sharp plan with the concession applied.
The non-obvious Australian truth: the single highest-value energy "tip" is the least tip-like one. A 10 minute plan comparison at your real usage, plus a check that you are claiming your state concession, routinely beats a year of disciplined habit changes. The advertised "X% below the reference price" is a marketing number anchored to a model household, not your meter, so the only way to know your real saving is to compare actual plans at your own kilowatt-hours. Do the boring 10 minutes first. The powerboard can wait.
This also reframes when to act. Plans drift: a deal that was sharp two years ago may now sit near the reference price as discounts roll off. The frugal household that never re-compares is quietly slipping back toward the default, one quarter at a time, no matter how many lights it switches off.
Grounded in the analysis
What you should actually do
In order of dollars saved, not in order of how good it feels.
Re-check your plan against the reference price
Put your real annual kilowatt-hours (off your bill) into a comparison and rank plans at your usage. Look at the supply charge and the usage rate, not just the advertised discount. This is the lever worth hundreds.
Claim every concession you qualify for
Check your state or territory energy concession and register your concession card with your retailer so it applies automatically. If you are behind, ask about the hardship program. Free money, no behaviour change.
Then tidy up usage and timing
On a time-of-use tariff, move big loads (dishwasher, dryer, pool pump) out of the evening peak. Switch off real standby hogs and use efficient appliances. Worth doing once the big levers are set, not before.
One state caveat that matters: the top lever, switching to a better plan, only exists where there is retail competition. Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT let you choose your retailer and tariff. In Western Australia (Synergy) and the Northern Territory (Power and Water) there is no retail competition, so you cannot switch retailer. Your levers there are tariff choice, timing on a time-of-use plan, and claiming every concession you qualify for.
Current figures, last updated 2026-06-15
Australian price and support benchmarks for 2026. Sources: the Australian Energy Regulator (aer.gov.au), the Essential Services Commission (esc.vic.gov.au), the federal energy department (energy.gov.au) and Canstar’s rate database. Live plan prices above come from current retailer offers. Confirm current figures before relying on them, as rates, determinations and support programs are reviewed regularly.
The bottom line
Why this matters right now
With the DMO 2026-27 and a lower Victorian Default Offer both landing on 1 July 2026, retailers will re-advertise their plans as a fresh percentage below the new reference price. That is exactly the moment to act on the top lever, not the bottom one. The households who come out ahead this year are not the ones who switch off the most standby lights. They are the ones who re-check their plan at their real usage and confirm they are claiming every concession they qualify for. Do the unglamorous 10 minutes first. Then, if you still want to, switch off the second fridge. For most homes, the comparison alone is worth more than every classic tip put together. Compare plans at your usage and start where the dollars are.
Common questions
A Selectra expert answers your savings questions
Make sure you are on a competitive plan. The biggest single saving for most households is not a habit change, it is getting off an old or default plan onto a sharper one, measured against the regulated reference price (the Default Market Offer or the Victorian Default Offer). A 10 minute comparison at your real usage, plus a quick check that you are claiming every concession you qualify for, usually beats every standby switch and LED globe combined.
A little, but far less than people expect, because part of your bill is fixed. The daily supply charge, commonly around 90 c to $1.20 a day, is roughly $330 to $440 a year you pay no matter how little power you use. Classic tips like switching off standby or installing LED globes only trim the usage portion, so they save a few dollars. The levers that save hundreds are your plan, your concessions and, on a time-of-use tariff, when you run big loads.
Heating and cooling is usually the largest single load, followed by hot water, then the fridge, the clothes dryer and the dishwasher. Standby power across all your devices is real but small, a handful of dollars a year, not the budget item it is often made out to be. The practical takeaway: the appliances worth managing are the big intermittent ones (heating, dryer, pool pump), especially their timing on a time-of-use tariff, not the phone charger left in the wall.
It depends on the gap between your current plan and the sharpest plan for your usage, but for households still on a default or legacy plan the saving is commonly in the hundreds of dollars a year. The reason is that the difference between the cheapest and dearest plans on the same network, costed at the same usage, is large. The honest way to size it is to compare real plans at your own annual kilowatt-hours rather than trusting an advertised percentage. In Western Australia and the Northern Territory there is no retail competition, so switching retailer is not an option there.
Yes. Every state and territory runs concession schemes for eligible households (pensioners, concession card holders, families and people on hardship support), and these come straight off the bill. The federal Energy Bill Relief Fund credited up to $150 to electricity accounts across 2025 in two automatic $75 instalments; that federal program ended on 31 December 2025, with no universal national replacement confirmed for 2026, so the standing support to check is your state concession. Many eligible households never apply, which makes this one of the highest-value moves on the list.
Only if you are on a time-of-use tariff. On that tariff your rate is higher in the evening peak and lower off-peak, so shifting the dishwasher, dryer or pool pump out of the peak window genuinely saves, though usually tens of dollars a year rather than hundreds. On a single-rate (flat) tariff the price is the same all day, so timing makes no difference to the rate, only to grid demand. Check your bill to see which tariff you are on before you rearrange your routine.
