Energy Spend Management for Strata – How to Save Time and Money on your Energy Procurement
right? Oh, it's kicked over to 11 Oh one. So we might jump in. Everybody, thank you once again for joining us. My name is Edward. Panel on the general manager of commercial and growth here at Energy Action, joining today by one of my colleagues. Bet saying Goes business development manager who works closely with Strata that has been doing so for many, many years here in energy action and we've got a special guest today. Gets great pleasure to introduce. Dave Harvey will give Dave a formal introduction soon, but he's an energy trader who has been working across the market for a number of years and is going to give us a bit of a guided to through the current state of crisis, if you like. That's gripping energy pricing across or energy markets across the country. Just watching a few more people join us on line, and I might with no further ado start moving into the the topic and to get there, though I do just want to offer up our acknowledgement of country in the spirit of reconciliation. We acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to the elders past and present, and extend that respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait violent people. Today I'm joining you, as is Dave and in fact, from within the direct nation. Uh, and I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of Parramatta, which is where both Dave and I are. The Parramatta Parramatta Gold people. A plan of Direct Nation who first settled along the operators of the Parramatta River. Beck, I believe you're in the country of the war away people the day also in the direct nation. So very briefly, Who the hell are we? My name is Edward Hannah. As I mentioned the GM of commercial and growth here at energy action. Been 25 odd years in the energy market in 25 years preparing, I guess for circumstances like we're seeing in the markets this week. But to be honest, as surprised as many other market observers at some of the events that we've seen over the last few months and where it's got us to Beck, who has been with us about eight years now here, energy action, working across the business and our operations of our customers contract and managing our pricing services. Who is now working directly with customers, particularly customers in the strata space. Welcome back and and also Dave, As I mentioned, Dave is an energy trader with years of experience across the sector, supporting customers as well as large and small retailers. With their trading and mismanagement, Dave has been working with a few of the small retailers, most recently who are directly exposed to the high spot prices, which was in fact suspended just yesterday afternoon. I think this experience gives Dave a pretty unique perspective on how the drama has unfolded and what it may mean for customers in the longer term, which is what we'll be talking through today as we consider what strata organisations need to do to manage their energy costs for the go forward. Um, Dave, thank you very much for joining us. It's very generous of you to give us your time and your insights. I know there's a lot going on around you, and as you mentioned earlier, you've got an eye on the screen. The prices on screen will give you a special dispensations if you need to swear or jump off and make quick decisions in the background and said, I'll try it out this way. Okay, So Okay, Um, right back. May I ask you just to give us a brief rundown for our audiences? To who? Energy action isn't what we're all about. Yeah, absolutely. So we are a energy brokerage company or your energy partner in energy contracts and energy management. One of our biggest things at the moment is always has been is to make sure that we help you get easier, cleaner and least cost energy contracts, um, and help you navigate the as we're calling it at the moment. The minefield of the energy market. We've been around for over 20 years now, and who we are graced with today is one of our founders. Um, and we have been managing over 20,000 small sides over 1000 large sites. Um, and we have recently been net zero accredited, which was pretty cool, helping make sure that we've got a nice, clean future through our Children. That's right. Thank you. Cool. Um, and Beck Strada. We've been in Strada a long time, helping many strata organisations through the perils, pitfalls and powers of the energy market. And what do we know about strata? And what have we got to share with strata managers? Absolutely. Good question. We figured this was the best place to start. Strada is complex. Um, as I'm sure many strata managers that are on the line today understand. Over the last decade, probably a little bit longer. We've worked really closely with sprouting companies, especially in New South Wales, but across the country. So we've been able to understand and learn a lot about what makes starters check and what makes them, I guess, unique in the energy buying market as well as just a company in general. So we understand that they're complex. We've got really diverse, um, and and differing energy needs that they've got lots of sites moving in and moving out, and things like that is strata. Company's come on or owners courts come on and move across. We also understand that they're dealing or strata. Managers are dealing really heavily with lots of different personalities in amongst those vying groups that they've got as well, so that can also be complex to add on top of it and then also dealing with embedded networks, which a lot of the Stratas will know and go. They can be really difficult. And the risks on selling, especially in the market today, are just really, really tough. So we've we've learned a lot. I guess the biggest thing from our perspective is that there's probably two key things that are really important to strata saving some money, making sure that they're getting the best deal across all of the different buying categories that they need to do and saving time. The complexity means that it's really time, um, strict. Um, and it means that those strata managers have already really run thin as it is. So being able to guess have an energy partner, um, helps helps take some of that burden off. And we've popped a couple of notes up there, as well as a couple of emerging trends that we probably wanted to flag with striders that will probably start to become forefront of their minds. And that's the rapid growth in EVs, or electric vehicles and what that might mean for Australia complexes as well as the I guess, growing expectation within the community. There's a lot to talk of green energy. There's lots of talk in that zero, Um, and that will start to come to the forefront of people's minds as well in the strata community? Absolutely, absolutely, yes. So a couple of a couple of key themes there, Right back for Strada, we appreciate a time critical strata. Management is from our point of view, we see a lot of value in strata managers having a reliable partner that can communicate well with them and understand exactly what they need to help them maintain the trust and confidence of the committees are working with. Secondly, to we appreciate that energy, particularly in the current climate. And it is a real cost of living share as energy costs go higher for strata and there's only a couple of options, right? That's more costs out of the maintenance budget that we're going to go somewhere else or it's increasing levels and feed on residents and tenants. Right? So we worked very hard to try and protect all of our strata partners from those impacts. As best we can, absolutely, which is probably a good leading ed, I guess, for you and Dave to talk about what's going on in the energy market at the moment. I'm sure everyone's heard. It's been on the news, even as so much as an hour ago on what's happening in the market. So any inside look, I'm going to tap a day with a bunch of really difficult questions, but I guess just just had a bit of context for that. We're not going to do a sort of energy 101. But I suppose just to just make the point that under the energy bill that strata managers strata residents would see, um, as their their opening their mail each couple of months. There's a whole supply chain, very complex supply chain underneath that, um, and a portion of your the costs that you're paying to your energy retailer go to support that retailer and support their risk management and their operations, etcetera. A portion goes through the poles and wires businesses that deliver that energy, um, but a large portion and this week a very large portion is going through to the generators. The and we're going to focus a lot today, I think, on the generator space there's some pretty interesting things going on in the network space at this time of the year, but we'll have to push that aside so we can worry about generators before we get into the current situation. I just wanted to give a bit of background. Everybody is probably very aware of this, which is for some context. The energy markets are in a pretty undergoing a pretty significant transition at the moment. There's loads of headlines about what's going to happen over the course of the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years. And those headlines and decisions being made now having a significant bearing on what's happening with prices this week, Um, and we'll continue to have a bearing over the next couple of years. A couple of is just to look at this transition very quickly. The graph on the left, sourced from a mo uh, just gives us a bit of insight into what I am. Oh sees, um, in respect of generation mix planned, possible and probable over the next 30 years, and you can see the shift away from the fossil fuels the black and grey of coal and gas and more and more wind, solar and hydro, making up the delivery of energy, the generation of energy and more and more battery as well, which is one of the missing components right now. We travelled through some difficult times, the key driver for this or one of the key drivers. For this, I should say this transition is obviously reducing emissions in line with the science coming out of the IPCC process sponsored by the UN It got real momentum here in Australia last year with the Cop 26 over in Glasgow. But it's obviously been a defining feature of policy making and a defining issue of the last 10 15 years of energy market evolution and this graph in the chart. This chart in the middle of I should say it's a couple of indicators of what's expected to happen to emissions associated with energy production here in Australia over the the next 30 years. A couple of different scenarios, a slow scenario. Sorry. The Yellow scenarios, the slowest step change through progressive change but a possibility. These two shorter curves that with the right policy frameworks and the right economic considerations, going the planning process that we'll have a much faster trajectory towards Net zero and the energy sector. This one in the foreground is the hydrogen superpower scenario. The middle scenario. This move Purple one was regarded a few months ago when this was producer January 21. Sorry, produced in 22 but referencing back to June 21. Some studies a step change scenario showing emissions getting pretty low out of the energy market through 2030 to 2035 as it's reflected on the left. But the other thing that policymakers are trying to plan for is growth in the energy market over the next few decades as well, and to to considerations ones the electrification of appliances and electrical vehicles. The other is the possibility that Australia could make a jump to become a renewable hydrogen superpower. Um, and you can see what might happen in the event that you know what policy planners have to consider a growth in energy demand of up to 470% over the next decade. Under that scenario, I went on stage to comment on that, but I'm sure he's got some views. Um, the policy framework that they're here in Australia but, uh, look internationally as well a lot of policymakers are referring to is what what we talk about is the energy try them. Um, and that's, you know, trying to balance the three priorities of, uh, energy security, environmental outcomes and cost at least cost outcomes. I guess, as I look at what's happening in the energy markets currently, um, you know, I can see that one of the foundation assumptions of the energy markets over the last certainly since I've been involved since since the 19 nineties has been that there's there's loads of fuel. There's loads of input fuel in Australia for to support the energy generation industry. A shortage of fuel, coal, gas and even as we transition into renewables, sunshine and wind is not a problem here in Australia. One of the most, I guess, prescient comments I read recently. Dave was actually from the CEO of a winter energy who made the comment that in opening our markets so far to export here on the East Coast, the natural gas and coal as well we've really imported a whole lot of energy shortage or fuel shortage issues is that people are exposed to around the planet and that's starting to have real impacts on people's lives and livelihoods. Is that is that your read mate on what's going on right now to lead us to this. The energy market is broken. Statement. Um, I think it's there's not a yeah physical shortage. No price issue. Yes. So the link to international pricing, um, has certainly pushed up domestic pricing? Um, dramatically. Um, yes, we see. In wa they've got a reservation policy. There's one in one on the East Coast, but it's clunky and it doesn't kick in until next year, and it holds. It holds volume, but it doesn't say anything about price. So? So there's so there's no physical shortage of energy. It's just what are people prepared to pay? And that's the big problem. Yeah, right. Well, let's let's have a quick look at that, shall we? We've got a couple of charts here just looking at market conditions back in January. Um, yeah. It was a pretty mild summer here in January. This particular week is Australia Day. Public holiday. Back to work, back to school for everybody. What a week. Um, nice mild temperatures. But what a week, Um, And then on the right side of the chart, Dave, we've got a couple of prices price charts from this week. What's what's going on here, Mac? Yeah. So the child on the left is that is what you expect to see in a normal, normal operational week. You've got, um, the little If you look at the grey line, you can see that it's sort of, um there's a little bit of a peak in pricing in the morning. It softens during the middle of the day. There's more solar available, and so utility scale on the rooftop. And then you see that evening peak as the dollar comes off. So that's I know People have heard the reference to the California duck curve. Or so there's a bump in the morning depression in the middle of the day as solar keeps in. And then, um, evening peak is where the risk is. So that's that's it. You can see it predominantly there. Yeah, that's probably a better example. Um, and the spot price Now, my eyesight is not so good. Sort of sitting around at between 100 between probably between 50 and 100 100. Yeah, so that's you know, that's what we've traditionally seen as pricing, um, which is pretty good for summer. So normally volatility is in the summer because this demand from, uh, conditioning load and stuff like that, and we get hot days, we get continual hot days. But because we had a a milder summer, there wasn't as much volatility. Um, whereas historically winter. So what they call a quarter to April to June and July to September have been, um, the lower demand months you get, you get some demand from from cold weather, but nowhere near is high as the bathroom hot weather. So a lot of the generators, uh, do their maintenance periods during Q two and Q three. Because there is less demand and they can. The system should be able to cope a bit better. Uh, and there's also a m o has rulings that they can't be maintenance in Q one because of the risk of summer demand. But what we can see on the chart on the rights is a reference to Cabinet. Can Evans comment about it being broken. Um, so you can see that the price parents, what price is $300? Um, the forecast price for the next 30 minutes is 15,100 which is the maximum price. Um, and that line is a flat line across from, uh, from there to the right hand side, meaning that everything that's been bid into the market of the future. Um, it's been bitten at 15,100 so But because the market is capped under certain conditions, um, the spot price actually gets locked in at $300 until those certain conditions are results. Sorry. Um, the problem at the moment is where that line is continually across at 15,100. Um, if tomorrow doesn't do anything, we could be stuck in this administrative price cap scenario for a significantly longer time. And then it should take to normally clear out that problem, right? And look at the headlines yesterday. Really important announcement. Shocking announcement for a lot of people that I am, Oh, felt the need to step in. And the headline is suspended. The energy markets. What does that mean? Dave, the suspenders probably suspend is probably not the right terms. So the market still operates, but Imo has taken over but the bidding process for the mainland states in Australia on the in the name, which is South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. Um, So what would normally happen under the price cap, is it? It's stuck at 300 until they resolve with threshold problem. Um, with high prices where they are forecasted to come out, that that's going to go not going to go anyway any away, any time soon. So what they've done is they've, um, made a decision that the spot price, they will create the bidding process for the spot price coal generation too to run. And that that spot prices determined by 28 day historical average for the equivalent half hour. So if if I happen to own a big coal generator, which I don't, by the way, I would be directed to shovelling some coal and producing some electricity. Yeah. Um, there was trouble. Yes. Yeah, right. Very interesting. Um, look, the backdrop to this obviously is, uh, situation in Eastern Europe. Um, and embargoes trade embargoes on Russia. How significant are international oil and natural gas prices and then also coal prices to this scenario? Yeah. So they've been the driving driving force. I mean, there's a few other bits and pieces in play as well. So the Ukraine Russia conflict war. Um, we want to What do you want to call it? Um has put pressure on energy stocks into Europe. So a lot of the European countries reliant on Russia source in coal and gas with the embargo, trade embargoes or sanctions, they've had to source it elsewhere, which has meant, um, they've needed to go to Asia and the US um, Asia can source through the LNG export terminals in Australia. Yes, from Australia. So those guys, they need to make a decision as to whether or not they sell internationally at a higher price. They sell domestically at a low price, or they sell domestically and try and get parody between international and, um, domestic pricing. So that's why we've seen the gas price go up. We've also seen how coal prices double the Newcastle source coal, which is black coal, which is predominantly what supplies New South Wales and Queensland. Um, so they now got to say, I guess, the same decision. Do they sell internally to their coal fired power stations, or do they look at making more money by selling coal overseas, or do they bring the price of coal up in terms of their own marginal cost? Yeah, so for my coal generator and assuming I'm not one of the I'm not part of the 30% of coal generation capacity that's offline at the moment for maintenance and other issues. Um, there's a real I've got to make a real decision as to whether I'm going to pay more than the price cap for my tonne of coal. Um, or I'm going to accept that. I just can't get cold and I can't run. Yeah. I mean, there are obviously other things in play with long term contracts and stuff like that, but you're. But that should be in the mindset of coal generators as to what their actual marginal cost is. So I can't imagine. You know, a lot of coal generators would be just completely running on spot spot coal. But gas is a little bit different because they gas fire generators will, um, not necessarily. They'll have some longer term contracts, but they'll also be driven by the spot price because they don't know exactly what does Obama need each day and stuff like that. So gotcha. All right, let's Well, let's, um let's just take a moment then, you know, and just consider what this means for customers. Customers are customers in the Stratos tractor. Typically, well, they do fall into two segments. None of them, fortunately, would be exposed to spot markets directly. They will be in contracts with retailers or looking to get in the contracts with retailers. And there's two markets fundamentally right back. There's small markets below 160 or 100 megawatt hours, depending on the state of usage per annum and then above that line. So just to have a quick look at what's happening for for small businesses and also mums and dads, you know, the tenants and the residents within strata complexes right now what are we seeing? Yeah, absolutely. So at the moment we're seeing the market across both. We're going to have some July price increases for the smaller market. Yeah, which is is standard for most retailers will do it. Some of them hold on to about August. Um, but I think and give me if I get it wrong, but I'm pretty sure they say it was going to be about 12% increases across especially New South Wales and Queensland. So we will see some price hikes likely happening there in Western Sydney. 12 Western Sydney. A bit higher. Probably a nominal, about 20%. That's just that's just on the price cap. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And then the C and I market at the moment I was watching. I was watching one of our online auction yesterday, and I saw a horrific price at peak of about 36 cents, which is considerably higher, considering probably this time a year ago when they would have contracted. Originally it was probably about 10 cents the peak, so you can definitely see that pressure on the market at the moment. That's interesting. That is really interesting. These small site prices to an extent small businesses and residents as as well are a little bit protected here. Um, if you back what we've got here on the right side of this page, everybody is the the ruling from the Australian energy regulator about the price caps across South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland. I don't have it for Victoria to hand where I think we're still waiting for Victoria to release theirs, but you can see, uh, we're talking about 10% in on the east coast of Sydney and through Sydney, calling for the Newcastle 20% in western Sydney, 15% in country, 13% in southeast Queensland and 6% in South Australia. If you back solve some of these numbers and Austria around Sydney, 43 cents a kilowatt hour delivered is what we'll be looking at for mums and dads. To your point, though back it's feasible that are larger. Customers will see even higher delivered prices 36 cents a kilowatt hour. You mentioned before we worry about everything else which is bundled into these contracts and in the background to here in this small market. We've seen this sort of mushroom in over the last couple of years. Retailers come into retail to moms and dads and small business. Uh, and some of those guys appears Dave are pretty exposed to, um, spot market. We saw some news from rehab a couple of weeks ago that they're sending their customers away. They're not confident that they can, by energy below these price caps in order to support their customers at these price caps or at other reasonable price points. David, we Is that a big issue across that space? Um, yeah, so I don't It depends on the, I guess, the type of small retailer. So some of the small retailers are associated with generation, so they potentially have the opportunity to have access to lower lower level hedges so they can hold more, I guess more competitive prices. I think of it as an internal and internal swap from the generator to the retailer. Um, some of the retailers would have potentially bought what they call load following hedges, so their load is covered. Um, they find they will find it harder to discount because they I mean, they're locked into a higher price. Um, and some of the some of the retailers would have just taken direct, um, spot exposure. They'll be the ones that are really hurting because they don't have any cover. Their prices are discounted capped at those demos, but they can't buy they exposure to the spot prices significantly higher. And then there's others that will have a risk and a trading policy where they having covering X amount through certain financial derivatives, Um, in how they build up their books and sort of be in the mid point. Tough for all of them. There right? Um, yes. Some days you don't understand why people get into retailer. Absolutely. Um, just will quickly just look at what's happening in the commercial industrial markets, where a lot of our clients with strata based buildings in strata are buying and selling. At the moment and back. We can see on the left side of the page, as he described, the market has shifted up considerably over the last 6, 12 months. Um, well, I guess in the last six months, um, to the point, this graph here it's on our website. It's publicly available. Um, it's a rolling average, so probably underplays some of the extreme pricing in the market. But you can see average prices here of approaching 20 cents in New South Wales and 18 cents in Queensland. Victoria, not quite taking the same pain but starting to catch the bug as well, with some cold weather down there, and for a lot of our customers, they would have I'll be sitting on the sidelines watching and learning from this experience, but not directly exposed to it for customers who are in need of contract. What are you telling them? How do we advise our customers through this sort of situation. Yeah, absolutely. One of the key things at the moment is if you can wait, Wait if your contracts not due at the end of June or early July. Um, at the moment, let's wait and see. But if you argue and you do need to contract one of the best things that I'm saying at the moment to customers, especially in the scene I space is to contract for at least a couple of years. Um, and the reason behind that is that we need a little bit of wiggle room to play so that we can help with some contract management pieces. Host that contract that's put in place, Um, and something that we can look at with your retailer that you end up signing up where there's something like a blend and extend. Uh, essentially, you're gonna you're still going to cop the pain, probably for the remainder of 2022. But we can start to smooth out that burden towards the end of that contract once we do see those market rates dropped. So another really good reason why it's it's good to have an energy partner. We keep such a close eye on the market, and we can definitely jump in and say, Hey, let's have a look at this now just to sort of ease that burden. As I said towards the end and a couple of years of the contracts, right? That's that's good advice. Good advice. Um, moving. Do you want to move through some of these slides now just to describe how we can support strata or what strata could and should be doing in this current environment? Absolutely. So energy Contract management is one of our biggest offerings that we've got. We do it really, really well. We've got a team of support staff in our back office who have wealth of knowledge, um, and great relationships with lots of the retailers as well. So what that basically means is that we can know your contract inside and out. We make it our business to know your contracts inside and out. A really good example. At the moment, it is a retailer with over in W. A who had a little T and C in There are terms and conditions that not many people knew about which essentially said to the customers that you know, if the market does change, we can start to implement this rule way. Whilst you think your prices a lot in on your contract, we can actually start to adjust those more in line with the market conditions. And that's really scary for those customers. When you do have that safety net or you think you've got that safety net in place, um, so that's just one. What we can do is know your energy contract. No, those terms and conditions and know how we can help guide you through those those sorts of struggles that you might come up. They're not often come up. I don't think in my eight years here I've ever seen a retailer do it. Um, so it's not something that is common, but it is something we can move with our customers on pretty quickly and proactively to get ahead of the game and secure best price for them. But I guess if we move on to the next slide, I guess that goes into a bit more detail of what we can do. So depending on your your sights and you're the complexity, I guess of the strata plan that you're you're managing. There's a few different options or tools that we've got now to help our customers get the best least price energy contracts. Um, one of them is our reverse auction platforms and through a large market customers. It's a really cool tool that, and you had your hand in in creating many, many years ago. Um, back in the day, I like to call it the reverse eBay. Basically, the retailers will will get all of your data, will do due diligence and and get all of the customer's data and pop it up onto a really interactive platform. Um, and the retailers will bed from highest value down to the lowest value for your energy. Um, it draws that really competitive nature out of the retailers. Choose to have a sit dead, or they can choose to sit there and and bid on the fly to to win your energy. Um, and it's pretty cool to see, you know, within 10 minutes, you see tens of thousands of dollars drop off that contract value with that competitive tension. Um, but I guess the other option that we've got is one that we use all the time for our small market, but we can do the same for our large market. And that's a tender release or request pricing. Um, are essentially we will put the detail out to the market and get them to come back in a number of rounds with their best and final offers to people down any any power rates that we can. Yeah, yeah. Look, the other piece in the department right now is just to mention solar. We've got a similar model in the solar space where we can extract firstly, help our clients status space to find there Requirements for for for solar, rooftop, solar and storage, rooftop, solar and storage is very sensible. Price hedge comes with some good environmental outcomes as well. Some very positive environmental outcomes. We run a process where we can help you define the specs, put this back up online and get, um, licence bidders to come in and bid for the right to supply. I think it's probably important to keep that at the forefront of people's minds. Right now, we can do service agreements that space as well, so it's not capital, and they can work nicely for strata and its committees moving into energy management. And then I just want to double back with Dave on current pricing very quickly. We might see if we can wrap it up. Yeah, absolutely. So energy management is the piece of the puzzle that I think helps the most. So it's a It's an investment for a business, but it ends up saving money, I think, in the long run. So, uh, any energy partners can offer some really good energy management assistance for companies. Energy action have a really good thorough, um, energy management plan that we can do with our customers, especially for strikers. It helps in terms of all your data is in one place. Um, your site lists all of your sites you build. You can run any reporting, Um, and just really understanding your energy contracts and having everything at the fingertips for you to be able to get it and report on. I think for Strada is having to have detailed the committee members is one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle as well, trying to get contracts across the line or moving with the market. So energy management is a great piece for our striders to I guess Understand what you're using. Be able to budget accordingly, Um, and be able to make some really good fast decisions is needed. Yeah, right. Um, just just to round it out. Then we were talking off line before about what we've been able to do for Strada, and you were really highlighting the power of group bite. Can you tell us a bit about some experiences you've had? Yeah, absolutely. So we've got a case study example up here of what we did for one of our strata company's. So this one has over 900 sites, a mix of small market and large market. Um, and we were able to save them money overall on their energy cost, which was awesome. And how we did it Was the group buying power. So utilising the complexities of that site list to the benefit of that strata company. So it could be a headache having 900 sites to manage, but it can come into great dead when you do use buying power for them. So we utilise that buying power in our relationships with those retailers, um, to really drive home some energy costs for this customer. Um and one of the big things for them was having a carbon neutral. Well, so in this example, we were able to get them a carbon contract at no cost, which was awesome, and also save them 26. And on their energy stand for their future contracts, which was pretty incredible cross. We might open up on carbon neutral and renewable power another day. But Dave, I guess the big question for thinking hard about is, yeah, there's there's current market conditions. How long are they likely to run for? In second questions? Take to what? What are the long term implications? And for customers? Um, how long they how long they last for, uh, take a view, Take a punt. Well, the market. The market tells me at least two accused Q two. Next year, we'll see. See an impact. I mean, those those cute to prices, uh, in the forward camera's above 200 in New South Wales and Queensland. Still, Wow, that's That's the I mean, the market expectation of where the girl will come out. I think that's probably too high personally, but that's, you know, this is not a financial advice or anything like that. It's just an opinion that we've probably seen too much too much premium built into that broad curve back. Um, what's currently happening in the moment? Um, Victoria, Victoria is a bit cheaper, so that's sort of, you know, 150 is not the 200 fifty's. Um, yeah, but, I mean, the big one of the biggest issues will we see? We'll see, is that we're coming into the northern winter. Um, we've got even if, uh, conflict in Russia, Ukraine ends tomorrow, they will still take a while for all that to philtre through. Um, and they're moving into winter winter, period. So that's going to put pressure back on the guests. Um, gas requirements as well. So, um, I think we will see high prices, at least. So the next six months, I don't think they will be as high as they currently are. I think that issue will get resolved, but I still be hard. And you're saying, historically, yeah. Look, we saw Claire Savage and a make a statement last week that she expected two years high prices. She specifically didn't say what high prices were, but I think we can expect it will be a long ride back down. There'll be a lot of risk averse retailers and risk averse generators out there for a long time. Yeah, yeah, No, I think I think yeah, it depends on your definition of high prices. $100 100 dollar energy prices are high than with what we're seeing at the moment. It's super high. So especially when we've got, you know, plenty of solar and, um, wind generation. I mean, we're seeing low wind output at the moment, which is causing pressure on pressure on the base loaders. The real issue is that evening peak. So when the solar runs out, when the sun starts to go down and solar decreases, how do you actually make up that shortfall that battery fleets just not here? Yeah. So turning. Turning that into sort of tangible actions that you've You've prepared a couple of key pointers for Strada just to step through the solutions that you can you can reach. Absolutely. So I think from everything that we've gone through and everything that we guess is seeing at the moment, I thought the best to summarise it in four key points for Strada on what's best and the most important one is knowledge is power. Um, have a really good trusted energy provider. Energy action can help you in that space. But being able to understand the market and and prepare for it is is key. Um, use the power of the energy market using that group. Buying power that you have as a strata company is also invaluable. You'll be able to drive down prices with that group buying power, um, and turn that complexity into the wind for you guys. Um, as we were just talking about behind the metre solar, um, in battery storage when it becomes, you know, if it does be something that is, is something that the strata company's can look at, it's definitely worthwhile. It can start to reduce some of that energy cost as well as the bonus of reducing emissions. Um, and invest in energy spend management. It is a worthwhile investment. It will help you with your contracting. It will help you with your budgeting. Um, and it will help you with all of your sort of, I guess, background detail that you need. That's great. Yeah. Look, I think that from my point of view, and we've heard from Dave that different retailers are going to have different exposures to what's going on. You can't just ask for a price. I think you really need to test any price you're seeing in the market. But at the same time, it's also really important to be ready to make quick decisions. That decision might be to set off and and go in default rates. We had them up on screen. They're horrible. Um, but you know, each business does have to consider its uncertainty specifically. And look, we're here to help you work through the possibilities and understand the risks you're taking and to look, it's time for us to wrap up. I didn't invite questions, but we love to field any. If there are any, please feel free to drop any into chat or into the Q and A panels. I might just take a moment just to thank Dave loudly for your time and your generosity here today, mate and sharing what your views of the market are and what you can see. It's great for our business to be able to reach out to experts like yourself and understand what it's like at the coalface. Thanks. Thanks for the opportunity. I'm glad I didn't swear at all. And it was pretty pretty calm. Right. Okay. And back as well. Thank you. We've got a couple of tools that we're going to offer to. We're going to send out to everybody who's attended here today. Um, that that might be a benefit and value. And, of course, if you would like to reach us, grab a screenshot of bags, details and you'll sleep bags details in the email that comes to you as well. Beck as well. Thanks for your preparation. And thanks for pulling this together today. Not a problem at all. Thank you so much as well. Ed and Dave, it's I think it's been invaluable information and hopefully it's helped. Great. Okay, look, I can't see any questions. We've hit time. So we might take this opportunity to say thank you, everybody and good bye. Thank you.
