TL;DR: A smart meter records when you use power, not just how much, which is what lets a retailer charge you 48c/kWh at 6pm and 14c/kWh at midnight. On a time-of-use tariff, when you run the dishwasher matters as much as whether you run it.
What Are Smart Meters and How Do They Record Your Energy Flow?
A smart meter records consumption and export in 30-minute intervals and sends that data to your retailer without anyone reading a dial.
An old accumulation meter shows a single total. It cannot tell your retailer whether you used that power at 2am or 6pm, which is why a flat rate is the only thing it can support. It also cannot separate export from import properly, which matters the moment you install solar.
Victoria completed its mandated rollout years ago. Elsewhere they go in when an old meter fails or when solar is installed, which means most solar households end up with one whether they sought it or not.
That matters, because a smart meter usually comes with a move onto a time-of-use tariff. Plenty of people discover the change on a bill rather than in a conversation, so it is worth checking which tariff you are on after any meter work.
Real-Time Data and Its Benefits for Solar Owners
Your retailer's portal or app shows what you generated, consumed, exported and imported, by interval.
That data answers a specific question: when are you buying grid power despite having solar? If the answer is heavy imports between 4pm and 7pm, you know exactly what to target, whether by shifting appliances or by adding battery storage.
It also records your feed-in credit per kilowatt-hour, so export billing is measured rather than estimated.
Check that data in the first month after installation. A meter wired so that export is recorded as import is not common, but it does happen, and it is far easier to correct when the numbers are fresh.
How Smart Meters Enable Time-of-Use Tariffs
Time-of-use pricing requires knowing when power was drawn, so it requires interval metering.
With it, a retailer can charge 45c/kWh at peak, 25c/kWh at shoulder and 15c/kWh overnight. Without it, everything is one rate.
This is also why the meter rollout and the tariff change arrived together. The pricing structure was not possible until the measurement was, and retailers moved to it as soon as it became available because it shifts demand away from the hours that cost them most to supply.
How Do Time-of-Use Tariffs Affect Your Electricity Costs?
Rates track demand. Peak is late afternoon and evening when everyone is home. Shoulder covers mornings and later evenings. Off-peak is overnight, and increasingly the middle of the day as well, because rooftop solar has made midday cheap.
A common New South Wales structure:
- Peak: 48c/kWh, 2pm-8pm
- Shoulder: 26c/kWh, 7am-2pm and 8pm-10pm
- Off-peak: 14c/kWh, 10pm-7am
That is a 3.4x spread between the cheapest and dearest hours for identical power.
Optimising Your Solar Usage with ToU Tariffs
Solar generation peaks in the middle of the day, which on most tariffs is shoulder or off-peak. Using your own generation then avoids importing at 26c/kWh.
Do not expect the same benefit on export. Feed-in rates are typically flat and low, often below 8c/kWh, regardless of what the import rate is doing at that moment. Self-consumption is where time-of-use pays a solar household.
The Role of Battery Storage in ToU Environments
A battery turns the spread into money.
Charge at 11am, when the shoulder rate is 26c/kWh and exporting would earn you 6c. Discharge between 5pm and 8pm, when peak is 48c/kWh.
You have converted power worth 6c into power worth 48c, which is the arbitrage the whole arrangement rewards. Some systems can be programmed to charge and discharge on price signals directly.
That 42c spread is also what makes a battery pay faster on time-of-use than on a flat tariff. On a flat rate the same battery only saves you the flat rate, so the identical hardware returns considerably less.
Is a Smart Meter and ToU Tariff Right for Your Solar Home?
It depends on one thing: whether you can move consumption.
If you can shift the dishwasher, the washing machine and the pool pump out of the 2pm-8pm window, time-of-use is straightforwardly cheaper. If your household draws heavily at 6pm regardless, a flat rate may cost you less.
Households with someone home during the day usually win on time-of-use, because their consumption already sits in the cheaper windows and their solar covers much of it. Households out until six often lose, because everything they use lands in peak.
Reviewing Your Household Consumption Habits
Look at what you actually do. Dishwasher after dinner? Air conditioning from 4pm to 8pm? Both land squarely in peak.
Your smart meter data shows exactly how much that costs. Shifting those into shoulder or off-peak is where the saving is, and small changes work: pre-cool the house before the peak window rather than during it, and put timers on anything that can run overnight.
Comparing Retailer Offers and Plan Structures
Peak windows differ between retailers, and so do the rates. A shorter peak window can be worth more than a lower peak rate.
Check the feed-in tariff too, though expect it to be flat. Then use your own interval data to model each plan against your real consumption rather than a typical household. Most retailers will run that comparison for you from your usage history.
Do that comparison annually. Peak windows and rates both move, and a plan that suited your household two years ago may now be charging peak rates over hours you are actually home. The data to check it is already sitting in your retailer's portal.
Key Takeaways
- Smart meters record in 30-minute intervals, which is what makes time-of-use pricing possible.
- A typical NSW spread is 48c peak, 26c shoulder, 14c off-peak: a 3.4x difference for the same power.
- Solar generation lands in shoulder or off-peak, so self-consumption avoids the 26c rate rather than earning the 6-8c feed-in.
- Battery storage converts 6c midday power into 48c evening power, which is the real arbitrage.
- Time-of-use only pays if you can actually shift load. If you cannot, a flat rate may be cheaper.
Read More
For a complete overview, check out our master guide: Read the Full Guide Here.
