Same Usage, Five Offers: A $32.88 Bill Difference | BillSave

See how five Alinta Energy offers produced bill estimates from $146.68 to $179.56 when BillSave applied them to the same real household usage data.

By BillSave · Published 2026-09-10 · Updated 2026-09-10

REAL-USAGE CASE STUDY

What changes when only the electricity offer changes?

We used one month of half-hourly interval data from the Single Phase System Site available through the IAMMETER public Demo Account. It is a real residential load profile, rather than a synthetic constant load. BillSave applied five Alinta Energy residential electricity offers for the NSW Ausgrid region to the same immutable energy Dataset.

The result was a difference of $32.88 for one month, or 22.42% of the lowest estimate, without changing a single interval of energy use.

BillSave calculated all five offers from the same 1–31 August 2026 energy Dataset. Every result is marked Estimated because two half-hour intervals in the shared Dataset were estimated.

IMPORTANT COMPARISON BOUNDARY

A controlled tariff comparison—not a retailer bill

This is a controlled illustration of tariff effects, not the household's real retailer bill and not a switching recommendation. A real residential load profile made available through the IAMMETER public Demo Account was treated as a hypothetical NSW Ausgrid household using Sydney local time.

The HomeDeal versions shown became effective on 5 August 2026; for this natural-month illustration, their published rules were applied to the complete 1–31 August Dataset. The comparison does not claim that those versions were available from 1 August, and eligibility must be checked separately.

RESULTS

The same energy data produced a $32.88 difference

The comparison covers all 31 days of August 2026: 1,488 half-hour intervals, 347.51 kWh of grid import, no grid export and no Controlled Load. All five offers were calculated by BillSave Compare against the same energy revision.

The highest and lowest estimates differed by $32.88. The energy quantity and every half-hour interval remained unchanged; the difference came from daily supply charges, usage rates, time periods and the free-usage rule.

BillSave calculates comparison differences from unrounded internal totals. Because displayed bill totals are rounded to cents, subtracting two displayed totals may differ from the displayed comparison difference by $0.01.

HomeDeal Smart — Single Rate: $146.68 AUD including GST—the lowest estimate.
HomeDeal Smart — Time of Use: $158.01; $11.33 or 7.72% above the lowest estimate.
Standing Offer — Single Rate: $166.69; $20.00 or 13.64% above the lowest estimate.
Solar Sharer Offer — Time of Use: $179.21; $32.52 or 22.17% above the lowest estimate.
Standing Offer — Time of Use: $179.56; $32.88 or 22.42% above the lowest estimate.

DATA QUALITY

Why all five results are Estimated

Two half-hour records on 10 August, from 19:00 to 20:00, are marked as estimated rather than actual. Because every offer uses the same immutable energy revision, all five results inherit that data-quality limitation.

Those intervals fall inside the 15:00–21:00 August peak window used by the TOU offers. BillSave therefore ranks these results only within the Estimated group and describes the first result as the lowest estimate under the disclosed assumptions—not a guaranteed cheapest bill.

Readers can still see how five tariff structures respond to the same Dataset, while the quality label prevents estimated input from being presented as fully measured evidence.

TARIFF STRUCTURES

How the five offers charge for electricity

Single Rate offers charge the same general-usage price regardless of time. Time of Use offers change the usage price by time and season, so both the quantity and timing of consumption affect the result. All five offers also include a fixed daily supply charge.

For the three TOU offers in this NSW scenario, the peak period is 15:00–21:00 every day during November–March and June–August, including weekends. The listed peak period does not apply during April–May or September–October.

Solar Sharer's midday free-usage period remains throughout the year, but it is capped at the first 24 kWh in that daily window. Additional usage is charged at the applicable paid rate. All prices listed here include GST.

HomeDeal Smart — Single Rate: $1.462780 daily supply charge and 29.161 c/kWh at all times.
HomeDeal Smart — Time of Use: $1.552430 daily supply charge; 52.976 c/kWh peak and 21.153 c/kWh off-peak.
Standing Offer — Single Rate: $1.662287 daily supply charge and 33.1375 c/kWh at all times.
Standing Offer — Time of Use: $1.764103 daily supply charge; 60.1964 c/kWh peak and 24.0383 c/kWh off-peak.
Solar Sharer Offer — Time of Use: $1.764103 daily supply charge; 63.7175 c/kWh peak, 27.5594 c/kWh in other paid periods, and the first 24 kWh each day from 11:00 to 14:00 free.

OFFICIAL SOURCES