Your business electricity bill is four pages of line items that nobody has ever explained to you. Not your retailer. Not your accountant. Not the person who set up the account. That's not an accident \u2014 the less you understand, the less likely you are to question what you're paying.
These five charges appear on most business electricity bills. Together they make up the majority of what you pay. Each one has its own logic and its own levers \u2014 and understanding them is the first step to paying less.
Demand charges are fees based on the single highest spike in your electricity use during the billing period. Unlike usage charges — which measure how much electricity you use over time — demand charges measure the maximum rate at which you used electricity at any single moment. One 15-minute peak is all it takes. Turn on the oven, the espresso machine, the dishwasher, and the air conditioning within the same 15 minutes on one Tuesday morning, and that spike sets your demand charge for the entire month. For many businesses, demand charges make up 30–50% of the total bill. Most business owners have never heard of them. Read the full guide →
TUOS (Transmission Use of System) and DUOS (Distribution Use of System) are network charges that pay for moving electricity from power stations to your business. Transmission is the highways — high-voltage lines carrying electricity long distances. Distribution is the local streets — the poles, wires, and transformers in your area. Together they typically make up 40–50% of your total electricity cost. You can't negotiate the rate — it's set by the regulator. But the tariff structure they're calculated on can sometimes be reviewed, and reducing your demand can lower the demand-based component of network charges. Read the full guide →
Power factor measures how efficiently your equipment uses electricity, on a scale from 0 to 1. Think of it like a glass of beer — the beer is useful power that runs your equipment, and the froth is wasted capacity. A power factor of 0.7 means 30% of the electricity you're drawing is froth — it doesn't do any useful work, but you're billed for it. If your business is on a kVA demand tariff, poor power factor inflates your demand charges. A capacitor bank ($3,000–$5,000 installed) fixes this permanently with a typical payback of 10–18 months. Read the full guide →
The daily supply charge is a fixed fee you pay every single day for being connected to the electricity grid, regardless of whether you use any electricity. For businesses it's typically $1–$3 per day, or $90–$270 per quarter before you've consumed a single kilowatt hour. It covers your connection, your meter, and retailer administration costs. While it's a smaller portion of a business bill, supply charges vary by 30–50% between retailers for the same connection — so it's worth comparing when you're shopping for a new plan.
These are government-mandated charges that fund Australia's renewable energy targets and environmental programs. They include the Large-scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET) and the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES). They typically add 5–8% to your total bill. All retailers pass them through at roughly the same rate, so you can't reduce them by switching retailers. They're not negotiable and they're not optional — they're a regulatory cost of doing business in Australia. If you see a separate GreenPower charge, that's a voluntary addition, not the same thing.
Understanding these five charges won't make them disappear from your bill \u2014 but it will make you dangerous. The business owner who knows what demand charges are and why power factor matters is the one who saves thousands, not hundreds. Your retailer has always had this information. Now you do too.
Want to see these charges on your own bill?
Upload your bill and we'll decode every line item \u2014 demand, network, power factor, and everything in between.
Analyse your business billWhy doesn't my retailer explain these charges?
Retailers aren't required to explain what each charge means. Bills are designed for regulatory compliance, not for comprehension. The less you understand your bill, the less likely you are to switch — which is exactly what your retailer wants.
Can BillDecoder show me these charges on my own bill?
Yes. Upload your bill and BillDecoder will identify every charge — demand, network, supply, environmental — and show you what percentage of your total each one represents. It takes 60 seconds.
Which of these charges can I actually reduce?
Demand charges are the most actionable — staggering equipment startup and fixing power factor can reduce them by 20–40%. Network charges can be influenced by reducing demand and reviewing your network tariff. Supply charges vary between retailers. Environmental charges are fixed.
Last updated: March 2026