How to read your Queensland electricity bill

What is on a Queensland electricity bill?

Billing period and the reference-price line

Most South East Queensland bills cover about three months. Near the top you will usually see a sentence like “this plan is 18% less than the reference price for a typical customer”. The reference price is the Australian Energy Regulator’s Default Market Offer, and retailers must state their offers relative to it. For 2026–27 the AER set the South East Queensland residential reference price 7.2% lower than the year before, from 1 July 2026 (AER, 26 May 2026). It is a useful yardstick, but it is calculated for a typical household, not for you, so two plans with the same percentage can cost you quite different amounts.

Your NMI

The National Metering Identifier is a code of 10 or 11 characters (the eleventh is a check digit) that identifies the electricity connection at your address, not you. In Queensland it usually starts with two letters followed by nine numbers, and it is normally on the first page of the bill near your customer details (Energy Made Easy explains where to look). You need it to switch retailers and to request your meter data. It is the one number on the bill that follows the house, not the account.

Meter type and tariff type

The bill will say, sometimes in small print, whether you are on a single rate, a time-of-use tariff or a demand tariff, and whether the meter is a smart (interval) meter or a basic one. This matters more than it looks. Smart-meter customers in Queensland are often defaulted to a time-of-use network tariff, and only smart-meter homes can take time-of-use, demand and Solar Sharer plans.

Supply charge

A fixed amount per day for being connected, whether you use anything or not. It is shown in cents per day and multiplied by the days in the period. For a low-usage home it can be a third or more of the bill, which is why the cheapest plan for a large family is rarely the cheapest for a single person.

Usage charges

Cents per kilowatt-hour, multiplied by what you used. On a single-rate plan there is one line. On a time-of-use plan there are two or three: peak (usually late afternoon and evening), off-peak (overnight) and sometimes shoulder or a daytime “solar soak” rate. On a demand plan there is an extra charge based on your highest half-hour of usage in the peak window each month, in dollars per kilowatt. Some plans also step the rate: a lower price for the first block of usage and a higher price above it.

Controlled load

If your hot water, pool pump or underfloor heating is on a separate circuit that only gets power for part of the day, it appears as its own section, labelled Tariff 31, Tariff 33, “night rate”, “economy” or “controlled load”, with its own supply charge and usage rate. Energex, which runs the network, sets the minimum hours each controlled load gets (Energex residential tariffs); the retailer sets the price. For many homes this is the single biggest load on the bill, and it is the section most comparison tools ignore. Our guide to Tariff 31 and 33 explains the difference.

Solar feed-in credit

If you have rooftop solar, the electricity you export is credited at a feed-in rate in cents per kilowatt-hour. In Queensland this rate is set by the retailer, not regulated, and it varies a lot between plans and changes over time. A high feed-in rate paired with a high usage rate is a common trap: it looks generous and costs more.

Discounts and their conditions

A percentage or dollar discount, often conditional on paying by the due date or by direct debit. Read the condition. A plan that is cheapest only if you never pay a day late should be judged on what it costs when you do, which is how we rank plans.

Concessions

If you hold an eligible concession card, the Queensland Electricity Rebate should appear as a credit line. At the time of writing it is worth $399.47 a year, GST inclusive, for holders of a Queensland Seniors Card, a Pensioner Concession Card, a Health Care Card, a Veteran Gold Card or an ImmiCard, provided you are the account holder and the address is your main home. The Commonwealth Seniors Health Card does not qualify. You apply through your retailer and it comes off each bill automatically. The current amount and rules are on the Queensland Government’s rebates page; if you think you are eligible and it is not on your bill, ask your retailer.

GST

Added once, at 10%, to the charges. Feed-in credits are not taxed. Retailers publish their rates to the regulator excluding GST, so a rate quoted on a comparison site may be a tenth lower than the one on your bill for the same plan.

Which four numbers decide whether you are overpaying?

1. How much you use in a year, in kilowatt-hours. Add up the usage lines across your last four bills, or take the average daily usage figure and multiply by 365.
2. When you use it. If your bill splits usage by time of day, the share in the peak window is what decides whether a time-of-use plan helps or hurts.
3. How much you export, if you have solar. The feed-in credit line tells you.
4. How much goes through a controlled load. That section’s usage figure.

With those four, and the rates you pay for each, every plan on the market can be priced on your home rather than a typical one. That is the whole job of a comparison, and the reason we ask for the bill rather than a number.

What should you do with your bill?

The free option is Energy Made Easy, the regulator’s comparison site. Enter your NMI and it can pull in your usage history, or type in a figure from the bill. It will not read the bill for you, forecast the year ahead or keep checking, but it is impartial and covers every plan. When My Energy Agent opens, you will be able to upload the bill itself, as a PDF or a photo, and have all of this read, checked with you and priced against every plan in one go.