Anybody have direct experience with Amber Electricity?

[cafz]

How elevated would it need to be to be to be attractive to an Amber user (with battery)

You're in the money anytime it's high enough that the sell price is above the buy price you expect to face for your near future consumption. So it depends on your personal consumption patterns, the state of charge in your battery, how much solar generation you have, and your local distributor charges.

I'd say anything north of $800/MWh is probably looking good though.

 

[cafz]

a 10-20c profit margin, which you can get most days and will leave you with $3-5 profit for the day

You must have quite a large battery. One Powerwall is only turning $1.35 - $2.70 in revenue if it dumps its whole capacity at 10c - 20c per kWh margin?

 

[Quickst]

f it dumps its whole capacity at 10c - 20c per kWh margin?

Can a system be set to autoexport at a set call price?

 

[Jules22]

You must have quite a large battery. One Powerwall is only turning $1.35 - $2.70 in revenue if it dumps its whole capacity at 10c - 20c per kWh margin?

Two powerwalls, 10-20c is absolute minimum I'd consider it worthwhile. Average FIT over the past 3 months is 79.5c where my average buy price over the same period is 13.5c so the delta is usually much more than 10-20

 

[Jules22]

Can a system be set to autoexport at a set call price?

Not yet, it is something I've spoken with Amber about and they say they are working on it (they've just put all sorts of trigger levels based on charge % and price on their EV charging software and it's working very well so it would be a very similar system I'm sure they are using the same code they'll eventually implement)

The smart shift works pretty well doing it all for you though, I'd just like the finer control to be able to say for example, between these hours only charge if price is below x and battery is below x and same with discharging. You can also do it all manually and override the smart shift at any point.

 

[Quickst]

Average FIT over the past 3 months is 79.5c

Current tariffs do not make a battery(ies) financially viable but its close. Peak tariff is 48.1c. FiT is 7.6c
In this scenario would trading on the wholesale market generate enough returns to make a battery worthwhile? Annual export = 15-20,000kWh. Much less in winter.

Also what is the "wholesale" price? The AEMO spot price for the State?

 

[Jules22]

Current tariffs do not make a battery(ies) financially viable but its close. Peak tariff is 48.1c. FiT is 7.6c

Retail, absolutely wouldn't. With Amber though I've gone from paying around a hundred a month on average to earning a couple hundred a month, so the batteries are very much financially viable. It does vary from state to state and I have zero experience in other states, but I've definitely heard from people in VIC, SA and QLD making it work well for them.

 

[Quickst]

batteries are very much financially viable

How many days a year are you in the money wrt to trading the battery capacity

 

[Jules22]

How many days a year are you in the money?

I haven't paid a single bill since I joined which includes charging the car etc (just over 6 months ago), and just withdrew $500 of my credit that has built up, still leaving a few hundred in there. Most days are anywhere from $1-5 profit (before you account for supply charges etc, so I really don't count anything less than $2 profit as a good day), during summer I was getting $10-20 days every couple of weeks, but they've dried up over the past month or so. Then about every 6 weeks I've had the big days which can be in the $200-300 profit on average.

I'm looking forward to going through a full summer and really taking advantage of the negative rates to get paid to charge the car (best I've seen is -80c/kWh but by the time I got the car we went through a whole heap of bad weather and I never really got to take advantage of the negative rates during summer)

 

[Quickst]

Whats the "wholesale" price. Is it the AEMo spot price?

Where does Amber make its profit?
.....

negative rates

i wonder if there is a way to isolate the solar array from the grid in neg price situations.

 

[Jules22]

Whats the "wholesale" price. Is it the AEMo spot price?

Where does Amber make its profit?

Yes, they charge a $19 per month fee, which is why I count anything less than ~$2 a day profit as break even when you consider the supply charges and the monthly fee.

 

[cafz]

Whats the "wholesale" price. Is it the AEMo spot price?

It's the AEMO spot price for your region, averaged to 30 minute intervals, with your network-use-of-service charges added on, and some additional amount for hedging/insurance that Amber obtain against persistent high prices.

 

[Jules22]

It's the AEMO spot price for your region, averaged to 30 minute intervals, with your network-use-of-service charges added on, and some additional amount for hedging/insurance that Amber obtain against persistent high prices.

Yeah, they are talking to going to a 5 minute pricing rather than averaging it, but not sure if that's still in the works or not.

 

[Vostok]

How many days a year are you in the money wrt to trading the battery capacity

Everyone’s experience will be different depending on what State they live in, the size of their solar array, battery (if they have one) and consumption patterns.

My experience to date in NSW has not been particularly happy. I picked a terrible time to join, and that’s on me, but I think the model does not seem to work very well in NSW. It’s probably much better in SA, VIC and ACT (i.e. jurisdictions with high renewable percentages) and for those whose solar arrays generate considerably more than 100% of their household consumption over a year, hence can export a lot (mine doesn’t, it generates about 50% of our usage).

I’ve made coin on only one day so far, but the main problem is that some days I am paying a lot. In fact, despite having a solar array, a battery, and three consecutive sunny days in Sydney, the past 3 days have cost me $12/day just in usage costs. I might be setting some Amber records for a customer with battery+solar, but not in a good way

Extrapolating to a 92 day quarter, that would be a $1100 bill, plus Amber, network and 100% greenpower costs to be added on top. All up, it would be more than double the worst-ever bill I’ve had in the past 12 months.

 

[Jules22]

100% of their household consumption over a year, hence can export a lot (mine doesn’t, it generates about 50% of our usage).

I'd disagree with that, my solar just covers us most days in summer the rest of the year it barely makes a dent.

All of my profits come from buying cheap and selling high. As long as there is a delta and you have a decent amount of battery you can make a profit. That works pretty much everywhere, but you need those batteries. Without them it would be very difficult on Amber.

 

[Quickst]

buying cheap

From the grid?

Too much solar can also be bad

I am thinking that unless all the solar can be consumed either self consumption or stored in battery then it's not a good idea especially if there is going to be exposure to negative pricing.

Problem with my setup is I think I have too much solar. In January 2024 I exported 3200kWh. That is approx 100kWh/day. Thats potentially 8-10 batteries.

Unless I isolate some of the panels....

 

[Jules22]

From the grid?

Yes, as I was saying earlier, my average delta between buy and sell prices even in the past 3 months where is 66c/kWh. That's pure profit margin buying and selling. Of course in summer I may end up with some solar on particularly good days that I can feed in, but the majority of the savings/profit come from shifting cheap power from the grid when renewables are high and exporting it back out at night when there are no renewables.

 

[Quickst]

It may be that moving forward, it might be better to just have a larger battery and a smaller solar array.

 

[Jules22]

It may be that moving forward, it might be better to just have a larger battery and a smaller solar array.

Yeah, that is exactly how my thinking has shifted since being on Amber, the solar is really a secondary consideration and a nice to have.

If FIT keep going the way they are it seems to be going that way with retail plans too.

 

[Vostok]

I'd disagree with that, my solar just covers us most days in summer the rest of the year it barely makes a dent.

All of my profits come from buying cheap and selling high. As long as there is a delta and you have a decent amount of battery you can make a profit. That works pretty much everywhere, but you need those batteries. Without them it would be very difficult on Amber.

You’re in the ACT though, on an ActewAGL tariff, in a jurisdiction which has offtake contracts with 100% renewable energy generators for 100% of its supply.

The price variations you see and can take advantage of are likely very different to the ones I see in NSW on Ausgrid. And Amber is applying the exact same SmartShift algorithms to me as it is to you, but producing a very different result.