What is Demand?
Electricity usage patterns differs between households and businesses. How and when you use electricity in your home or business differs to your neighbour or the business next door. Turning on all of your appliances at the same time creates a spike in the amount of electricity you require, or your maximum demand required to use all of your appliances. The more appliances you have turned on at the same time, the higher your demand will be.
What is a Demand tariff?
Demand Tariffs are an incentive for customers to use less electricity during peak demand times. They have been designed to smooth out the peak times when electricity is consumed, reducing pressure being placed on the electricity grid.
Usually, your bill has two types of charges:
- Supply charges – a daily rate.
- Usage charges – the total amount of electricity you use over the billing period (often with different rates for peak, shoulder, and off-peak periods), with rates charged per kWh of energy used.
If you’re on a demand tariff, your bill will also include a third component, a demand charge. A demand charge is based on your highest energy usage over each billing period (measured in 30-minute blocks) during peak times.
This means that your bill charges are influenced not only by how much energy you use overall, but also by the highest power ‘demand’ you put on the electricity.
If you turn on all of your electricity appliances during a peak time, your demand will go up. And if you’re on a demand tariff energy plan, so will your demand charges.
How can I make the most of a demand tariff
A peak demand tariff measures the demand you place on the electricity network during the specified peak time.
Spreading your electricity usage over a day, rather than all at once will reduce the demand you place on the electricity network.
If you can, change how you use your electrical appliances during peak times. This can be as small a change as running your washing machine or dishwasher outside of peak times.
Talk to us about Demand Tariffs
If you have a question about Demand Tariffs, give us a call on 131 806 or write to us.