General
Cable's team are currently working hard to deliver an awesome experience for you. We're based in the Sydney CBD.
Cable currently serves customers in the following Local Government Areas (all Sydney metro area): Sydney, Woollahra, Waverly, Randwick, Bayside, Inner West, Burwood, Strathfield, Canada Bay, Lane Cove, Willoughby, Gordon, Northern Beaches.
We have ambitious plans to expand nationally. Please do join our waitlist even if you live outside our current area. We will prioritise expansion into areas where we have waitlist customers.
We focus on serving small business customers - the most neglected segment in the Australian electricity market.
Cable currently act as an agent of another company who are an authorised retailer in the National Electricity Market.
We are in the process of applying for our own authorisation.
Economics
Our customers save anywhere up to 30% compared to their current retailer. And lock in those lower costs for 3 years. Huge!
Part of our special sauce is that we give every customer a bespoke price. We do this by analysing your historical smart meter data - customers who consume electricity at times when the wholesale price is cheaper are lower-cost for us to serve. So we reward you with better pricing!
We also factor in the cost of installing and managing a battery on your premises. Every place has its nuances, and things like switchboard upgrades and cable runs all feed into how cheap we can get power to you (while maintain responsible & sustainable margins ourselves).
You are billed for the kWh's you actually use, and a daily supply charge.
You are not charged for the kWh's that flow through your main grid-connected meter. This means that you aren't charged when we import energy to charge the battery. We also don't charge you anything for the battery.
We give you a classic power contract, as if you didn't have a battery - it's just cheaper.
Yes - we pay $0.03/kWh for every kWh your PV system generates that isn't consumed by your load, irrespective of whether we use that energy to charge the battery or if we export it to the grid.
Cable owns the battery. We fund it, install it, maintain it, and manage its charging schedule in order to reduce the cost of serving your property and decrease your power bills.
We ask for a small deposit - equivalent to roughly three months of electricity costs. This covers our installation & battery recovery costs in the scenario that you leave Cable before the end of your Minimum Term. If you stay beyond that Minimum Term, the deposit is fully refundable (and you've had three years of cheap electricity, enabled by a free battery!).
Our energy & battery plans last for a minimum of three years. During this time, you get the one cheap rate, indexed to inflation annually.
Virtual Power Plants
You've probably heard the term Virtual Power Plant (VPP) before. It's definitely hit the zeigeist!
Essentially, a VPP is a network of communications-linked energy assets (solar, batteries, EV chargers, heat pumps, industrial appliances, etc.) that can be controlled as a portfolio to respond to price signals in the grid (e.g. low/high wholesale prices, network constraints, or other grid services like frequency control). With the proliferation of Consumer Energy Resources (CER, another acronym!), VPP's have become the most attractive way for us to reduce the cost of our electricity system and get full value out of these awesome next-gen electrification assets.
Cable is the next, better, evolution of a VPP.
Today, you can more-or-less boil down existing VPP options into two categories:
TradRetailer VPP
This is the model you typically see from an incumbent electricity retailer. Under this model: you pay for the battery; electricity retailer (TradRetailer) gives you a more-or-less traditional tariff (billed on electricity flows at the "gate meter" - i.e. the traditional meter at the boundary of your premises and the distribution network; you authorise the TradRetailer to control the battery (at times that suit the retailer); the TradRetailer gives you some sort of token compensation - maybe a few hundred dollars of bill credit.
This model has obvious limitations. You pay for the electricity that the TradRetailer uses to charge the battery at times that suit them. You don't get compensated for the full value of the kWh's discharged into peak price events. You have limited control on the impact of the TradRetailer's actions on your battery's degradation over time. And you've spent thousands for an asset they use! It's not surprising that the enrolment rates for these programs are incredibly low.
Dynamic Tariff VPP
This is a more innovative version, offered by only a small number of electricity retailers. Under this model: you again pay for the battery; the retailer gives you access to a dynamic price that closely resembles the wholesale spot price; they also often give you software to automate your battery charge/discharge schedule.
This model is much better than the TradRetailer VPP, and for some customers will be a great option. But it still requires you to pay thousands for a battery and go on-risk for the quality of that battery, the workmanship, and the warranties that back it all. If the battery doesn't work - that's your problem. Similarly, if the battery control logic is out (e.g. you drain your battery in 2 hours for a price spike that lasts 4 hours) you remain on risk for the high market prices that you're paying for grid power.
The Dynamic Tariff VPP is great for self-funded, highly-engaged customers who are highly educated about batteries and the electricity market and confident enough to manage that risk.
Yes, we operate a VPP. Ours is different from others, for these key reasons:
(a) You don't have to fund an expensive asset;
(b) You don't have to manage the risk of that asset working properly;
(c) You don't have to educate yourself on very complex battery technology, the workmanship required to install the battery, and the quality of the warranties backing it all;
(d) You don't have to worry about exposure to the most volatile commodity market in the world;
Fundamentally, we think that the effort & expertise required to fund, install, operate & risk-manage these assets is far too great a burden to put on customers. Trust us - doing it properly involves very sophisticated tech and know-how!
Ultimately, our job is to deliver a market-leading electricity price and let you operate on auto-pilot. If you want to watch the wholesale price like a day-trader, that's great! Other options might be better for you.
But if you want no-risk, set-and-forget electricity at massive savings, we're the right place for you.
Signing Up
We have ambitions to serve a very wide range of customers in due course.
As we get started, we are focused only on customers who have at least 12 months of historical smart meter interval data, are within the Ausgrid distribution network area, and consume between 10 and 160 mWh's of electricity per year.
Even if you don't fit this criteria, please do join our waitlist! We will prioritise our roadmap based on attributes of those potential customers on our waitlist.
Follow the links on our website to obtain an indicative quote. If you're happy with how it looks, simply accept your waitlist place!
Refer friends and neighbours! We will prioritise those on our waitlist whose referral links have been used by others joining the waitlist.
One of our team will give you a call to better understand your property. We will ask you to take a few photos of your electrical set-up (meter box, main fuse box, potential sites for battery, etc.). If things look good at that point, we will schedule a visit from one of our surveyors. They will confirm the details for installation, and be able to answer any of your questions.
After this point, we will offer you a firm price schedule for the term of your energy & battery plan. Once you sign up, we can schedule an installation date that works for you.
We will keep in touch with you ahead of installation by SMS, email and, if necessary, phone. You'll be kept fully informed about what to expect.
On the day, our team of awesome electricians will come to install the battery. The whole process takes 1-4 hours, depending on your electrical set-up. They will fully commission the battery and ensure it is working effectively.
If you become a customer, you will receive a $50 account credit for everyone who uses your referral link to also sign up. And so do they! There is no limit on how many friends you can refer, but you do need to be an active customer at the time they sign up to one of our energy & battery plans.
Cable batteries
Yes, batteries are very safe. Particularly when installed by expert electricians like those at Cable.
Ultimately, that's our risk to manage. Your electricity supply will remain totally uninterrupted, it will just be served totally by the grid (which is more expensive for us - not for you).
As part of our battery plans, you'll agree to give us access to your battery to perform any necessary maintenance and ensure the battery is working as expected. All of this maintenance is at our cost (unless you damage the battery yourself, which hopefully is hard to do!).
Cable works with Tier 1 global manufacturers to continually evolve its own line of batteries. All our hardware meets Australian standards and are compliant with CEC, State, and DNSP requirements.
We use Lithium-Iron Phosphate batteries, which have become the mainstay of the global battery supply chain because of their excellent combination of safety, performance, and value.
In general, we install 40kWh batteries at small sites, and 100kWh batteries at larger sites.