I had no idea about this until a Flatchatter asked if it was real. It does sound too good to be true, I admit, but our major sponsors Strata Choice have found a way of allowing small strata schemes to band together to get a discount from energy companies.
If you don’t believe me. read on. This is from Strata Choice’s newsletter last year – JimmyT.
With utilities making up between 10% – 30% of the running costs of an average apartment building, it is a great place to start to look for potential savings in costs. One method is to shop around for a better deal on electricity prices.
The electrical network, such as the power lines in the street, the lines running to the building and the electricity meters are owned by a network owner such as Ausgrid. The actual electricity that you purchase for your energy consumption can be purchased from many retail energy providers in the market.
These providers purchase energy wholesale and then resell it to consumers. The quality and service reliability is the same no matter who you purchase the electricity from as it is all managed by the network owner. This provides you freedom of choice without compromising on the quality or reliability of your electricity supply.
Our larger properties under management who consume say, at least $25,000 of electricity p.a. are large enough to be able to tender to retail suppliers and have them bid to supply the electricity to them. This will save the building significant electricity costs rather than purchasing energy on a month to month basis. The contract terms are usually about 2 years in duration.
Strata Choice, two years ago bundled together a group of 432 properties that use too little on a consumption basis to solely tender for an electricity contract. They consume on average $3,200 p.a. each. This initiative saved the group an estimated $651,310 in energy consumption costs over two years, which represented a 24% saving in electricity costs.
The two year contract is now up for renewal and has been placed to market with an estimated saving of an additional $219,715 p.a. which is 14% saving from current market rate.
All properties managed by Strata Choice who are on a small energy contract are invited to participate in the buying group and new properties to Strata Choice can also benefit by being added throughout the contract term.
