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. This includes a 10-minute buffer to the demand window where SmartShift will stop sending charge commands from 10 minutes before the window starts. For example, if your demand window starts at 3 pm, the last charge command will be sent no later than 2.50 pm. Sometimes it takes a few minutes for commands to reach your device, so do not be alarmed if your battery is still charging for a few minutes after 2.50 pm. The buffer was put in place to account for this.
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. During the wooler months, the battery may not be as full before the demand window starts, due to factors such as lower solar production and higher usage from appliances such as heating systems. 

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 your 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.

Why is my battery charging during a demand window?

If you are experiencing unexpected charging and discharging actions that don't align with what the SmartShift plan is meant to be doing during the demand window, please note that you may still have a Time-Based Control (or NetZero for Powerwall owners) set up in your battery's app, which you can change to self-powered or remove from the app, rather than through the Amber app. 

NetZero users

If you are using NetZero, the time-based control will be switched on, as it relies on time-based control in the Powerwall app for functionality. The advanced price forecasting (as shown in the "plan" page of the Amber app) is not used to determine the pricing with NetZero and instead relies on regular price forecasting to alter the time-based controls. This means there may still be charging on the Powerwall's side for example, but not from the SmartShift algorithm and is not aligned with SmartShift's rule of no charging during a demand window.

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