How do demand tariffs work with a battery?

Read our general information about Demand Tariffs with Amber here.

There are a number of ways that having a battery and/or being with SmartShift can help you to minimise costs while on a demand tariff.

If your battery covers all peak time usage (and therefore you do not draw any electricity from the grid in the demand window across the whole month), you should expect any demand charges to be very small/negligible.

If you are enrolled in Amber for Batteries with SmartShift

SmartShift has the following 2 constraints built in to minimise your demand charges:

1. SmartShift will not direct your battery to increase its charge level by importing from the grid during the demand window
2. SmartShift will preference self consumption during these windows where possible by considering usage from the grid during these windows to have an elevated cost.

We cannot guarantee that you will never draw from the grid in these windows. For example if your battery is unable to cover your usage for the entire demand window you may use from the grid once your battery runs out, or during the window to stretch your battery energy across the whole window.

Planned Improvements

We are continuously working on ways to improve the SmartShift algorithm. Looking ahead, we plan to implement a more nuanced approach to this in cases where it appears that someone’s battery may not last them until the end of the demand period. In these cases, it might be beneficial to utilise the battery's remaining energy at a slower rate over the entire demand period, even though this could mean some consumption from grid. The idea here would be spread the grid consumption as equally as possible over the demand window.. This is something we are modelling at the moment to determine the best approach. Stay tuned.

If you battery is managed by a 3rd party

If your battery/devices are optimised by a third party, you will need to check with them whether they factor in demand tariffs.

Seasonal demand tariffs

If you are in the NSW Ausgrid network area, from 1 July 2024 the residential demand charges only apply in Summer (November to March) and Winter (June to August). So for September - October and April - May you will benefit from your low flat network rate, with no demand penalties