How to Read Your Synergy Bill After Solar Perth: What Has Changed and What It All Means

Your first Synergy bill after solar is installed can be surprising, and not always in the way people expect. Some households see a much lower amount and feel satisfied. Others open the bill and wonder why they are still paying anything at all. A few are confused by new line items they have never seen before.

The bill has not become more complicated, but it has changed. Understanding what each part means, how they relate to each other, and what a well-performing system should look like on paper takes the guesswork out of reading it. This guide walks through everything on your post-solar Synergy bill and what it is telling you.

The Three Parts of Your Post-Solar Bill

Before solar, your Synergy bill had two main elements: a supply charge and a consumption charge. After solar, a third element appears: your DEBS export credit. These three things work together to produce your final amount payable.

• Supply charge: A fixed daily charge for being connected to the grid. Appears regardless of how much solar you generate.
• Consumption charge: the cost of electricity you drew from the Synergy grid: at night, on cloudy days, and during any periods when your solar generation could not cover your household loads.
• DEBS export credit: A payment from Synergy for the excess solar energy your system sent to the grid. This appears as a credit that reduces your total amount payable.

Your final bill amount is: supply charge plus consumption charge, minus your DEBS export credit. If the credit is larger than the consumption and supply charges combined, Synergy carries the balance forward to your next bill.

The Supply Charge

The supply charge is a fixed daily fee for your connection to the Western Power network. It covers the cost of maintaining the poles, wires, and equipment that deliver electricity to your home, whether or not you use any grid electricity at all.

On your bill, you will see it shown as a rate per day multiplied by the number of days in the billing period. Synergy bills quarterly, so a typical quarter covers around 90 days. The supply charge appears as a single line and is the same whether you generated 1kWh of solar or 3,000kWh.

This is the most common source of confusion for new solar owners. Even with a well-sized, well-performing system, the supply charge means there will always be something to pay. It cannot be offset by solar generation or DEBS credits. It is a fixed network access charge.

Current rate: approximately $1.19 per day on the standard A1 tariff as of 1 July 2026. Over a 90-day quarter this adds approximately $104 to your bill before any consumption or credits are applied.

Consumption (Import): What You Drew from the Grid

Your consumption charge covers the electricity you imported from the Synergy grid during the billing period. This happens whenever your solar panels were not generating enough to cover your household loads: evenings and overnight, early mornings before the sun is strong, cloudy days, and any periods of high load that went beyond what your panels were producing at that moment.

On the bill, you will see the total kilowatt-hours imported from the grid and the cost at your tariff rate. On the standard A1 tariff, the consumption rate is approximately 33.26 cents per kilowatt-hour as of 1 July 2026.

If you have a battery, your consumption figure will be lower than without one, because the battery covers much of your evening and overnight load using solar energy stored during the day. Without a battery, everything you use after the sun goes down comes from the grid at the full import rate.

Your DEBS Export Credit

The Distributed Energy Buyback Scheme (DEBS) pays you for excess solar energy your system exports to the Synergy grid. When your panels generate more than your household is using at any given moment, that excess energy flows out to the network, and Synergy credits you for it on your bill.

DEBS export credits are only available to customers with inverters rated at 5kW or under. If your inverter is larger than 5kW, your system can still export energy to the grid, but DEBS export payments do not apply. This matters during system design, and your energy consultant at Positive Energy Solutions will explain the trade-offs when recommending your inverter size.

DEBS pays at two different rates depending on the time of day the energy is exported:

• Peak rate (10c/kWh): applies to exports between 3pm and 9pm. This is the window when grid demand is highest and exported solar earns the best return.
• Off-peak rate (2c/kWh): applies to exports between 9pm and 3pm the following day, including overnight and through the middle of the day when solar is generating at its peak.

The rate structure is worth understanding, because it explains why maximising self-consumption is more valuable than maximising export. Every kilowatt-hour your household uses directly from solar, rather than exporting and buying back later, is worth the full import rate of around 33 cents. The same kilowatt-hour exported during the middle of the day earns only 2 cents. Using your solar generation as it is produced, or storing it in a battery for evening use, is far more valuable than sending it to the grid.

On your bill, the DEBS credit appears as a negative amount, a reduction from your total charges. You will typically see a breakdown of peak and off-peak export volumes and their credit values.

How It All Adds Up: A Simple Example

To make the bill structure concrete, here is how a typical quarterly bill might look for a Perth household with solar panels and a 5kW or under inverter on the A1 tariff:

• Supply charge: $107 (90 days x $1.19/day)
• Consumption charge: $180 (556kWh imported from grid x 33.26c/kWh)
• DEBS export credit: -$90 (off-peak and peak exports combined)
• Total payable: $197

Compare that to a pre-solar bill for the same household that might have been $480 to $600 per quarter. The savings are clear, even though the bill is not zero. The supply charge, evening consumption, and the low off-peak export rate are the main reasons a post-solar bill is not as low as some people expect.

With a battery added to the same system, the consumption charge would be much lower, because stored solar covers most of the evening load, and the export credit would also be lower, since less excess solar reaches the grid. The net bill reduction from a battery comes from replacing expensive grid import with stored solar, not from exporting more.

Summer vs Winter: Why Your Bill Changes

Your Synergy bill will look noticeably different between summer and winter quarters, and this is entirely normal. Understanding why helps you judge whether your system is performing as expected.

Summer Quarter (October to March)

Perth’s long, sunny summer days mean your panels generate significantly more energy. Household consumption is also typically lower in summer, with no heating loads and moderate hot water use. The result is a high export volume, a lower consumption charge, and often the lowest bill of the year. Some households run a credit balance in summer that carries forward to offset winter quarters.

Winter Quarter (May to August)

Shorter days and more cloud cover mean lower generation. Winter also brings higher consumption for heating, hot water, and longer hours with lights on. The gap between what your solar produces and what your household uses gets wider, which means more grid import and a higher bill. A battery helps: it stores whatever solar is generated during the shorter winter day for use in the evening, cutting grid consumption, but winter bills will always be higher than summer ones for most households.

When judging your system’s performance over a year, look at the annual total rather than individual quarters. A system that is working well will show strong savings over 12 months, even if individual winter quarters look less impressive.

What Your Tariff Choice Means on Your Bill

The tariff you are on with Synergy sets the rate at which your consumption is charged and, in some cases, changes how you can maximise your solar savings. Two tariffs matter for most solar households:

• Home Plan A1 (Standard): a flat consumption rate of approximately 33.26c/kWh at all times of day, with DEBS export credits applied as described above. The most straightforward option and the starting point for most solar households.
• Midday Saver: offers a lower consumption rate during the 9am to 3pm window, the period when solar is generating at its strongest. Best suited to households that can shift loads like dishwashers, washing machines, and pool pumps to run during the day. Less useful for households who are at work all day and cannot shift loads.

Both tariffs appear the same way on the bill, consumption in kilowatt-hours and the rate that applies, but the rate applied to daytime imports will differ between the two. For a full comparison of which suits your household, see our guide: Synergy A1 vs Midday Saver vs EV Add-On.

If You Have a Battery

Adding a battery to your solar system changes the bill profile noticeably. The key differences you will see:

• Lower consumption charge: the battery stores solar energy generated during the day and releases it in the evening. This replaces what would otherwise be grid imports at the full 33c+ rate, so your imported kilowatt-hours drop significantly.
• Lower DEBS export credit: with a battery storing excess generation rather than sending it to the grid, your export volume decreases. This is the right trade-off, since you are getting 33 cents of value from stored solar rather than 2 cents from exporting it.
• Net result: a lower total bill, driven mainly by the drop in consumption rather than a rise in export. The battery earns its value from replacing expensive grid import, not from higher export income.

If your system includes Synergy Battery Rewards enrolment, you may also see occasional event credits on your bill: payments for kilowatt-hours your battery sent to the grid during a Synergy-activated demand response event. These appear separately from DEBS credits and only show up in quarters where an event occurred.

When Your Bill Looks Higher Than Expected

If your post-solar bill is not as low as you expected, there are a few common reasons, and most of them have straightforward fixes.

• The supply charge is being misread as consumption: the fixed daily charge appears prominently on the bill and cannot be offset by solar. It is not a sign of poor system performance, it is simply the cost of grid connection.
• High evening and overnight usage: if your household uses a lot of electricity after sunset, long showers, multiple appliances running late, EV charging overnight, that all comes from the grid at the full import rate. A battery fixes this directly.
• Loads not scheduled during solar hours: heat pumps, dishwashers, washing machines, and pool pumps running in the evening rather than during peak solar generation add significantly to grid consumption. Scheduling these loads to run between 10am and 2pm makes a real difference to your bill.
• System undersized for current usage: if your household’s energy needs have grown since installation, new appliances, a heat pump, an EV, your original system may not be covering the load it was designed for. Positive Energy Solutions can assess your system against your current usage.
• System underperforming: if generation has dropped compared with previous quarters, a fault or ageing issue may be the cause. This is where monitoring becomes important.

For a detailed guide on getting the most from your system’s output, see: How to Maximise Your Solar Savings Perth 2026.

Checking Your Bill Against Your Monitoring

Your inverter monitoring app, whether that is SigEnergy, Fronius Solar.web, Tesla, Sungrow iSolarCloud, or another app, gives you generation and consumption data that should broadly line up with your Synergy bill. Comparing the two is a useful check on system performance.

If your monitoring app shows strong generation figures but your Synergy bill shows high consumption, the likely explanation is high evening and overnight usage pulling from the grid. If both monitoring and bill show lower generation than expected, something may be affecting system output, such as shading, a fault, or dirty panels.

Every system Positive Energy Solutions installs is also registered with Omnidian, a dedicated after-sales service company that monitors generation performance and acts when your system is not producing as expected. Omnidian monitors your system separately from the inverter app, adding another layer of visibility that catches issues the inverter’s own monitoring might miss. If Omnidian finds a performance issue, they look into it directly and coordinate any service or warranty action, so you do not need to chase anyone.

Related guides

• How to Read a Solar Quote in Perth: What Should Be There, What to Question, and Why Two Quotes Are Never the Same
• Synergy A1 vs Midday Saver vs EV Add-On: Which Electricity Plan Suits Your Perth Solar Home?
• Synergy Battery Rewards Explained: How WA's Battery VPP Works and What You Actually Earn
• Synergy DEBS and Feed-in Tariffs in WA: A Simple Guide

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why am I still paying a bill if I have solar?

The supply charge, a fixed daily fee for your connection to the grid, cannot be offset by solar generation or DEBS credits. It appears on every bill regardless of how much your system produces. Beyond the supply charge, any electricity you use when solar is not generating (evenings, overnight, cloudy days) comes from the grid at the standard import rate. Most solar households still have a bill to pay, it is simply much lower than before.

What is the DEBS credit on my bill?

The DEBS (Distributed Energy Buyback Scheme) credit is the payment Synergy makes for excess solar energy your system exported to the grid during the billing period. It appears as a negative amount, a reduction from your total charges. DEBS pays 10 cents per kilowatt-hour for exports between 3pm and 9pm (peak), and 2 cents per kilowatt-hour at all other times (off-peak). DEBS export payments are only available to customers with inverters rated at 5kW or under.

Why is my export credit so small?

Most solar generation happens between 9am and 3pm, the window that attracts the lowest DEBS rate of 2 cents per kilowatt-hour. If your household is at work during the day and not using much solar as it is generated, a large share of your generation is being exported at this low rate. A battery fixes this by storing midday generation for use in the evening rather than sending it to the grid at 2 cents.

My inverter is larger than 5kW, where are my export credits?

DEBS export payments only apply to inverters rated at 5kW or under. If your inverter is larger than 5kW, your system can still export energy to the grid but you will not receive DEBS credits for it. This is an important design consideration, and your energy consultant will have explained this trade-off when recommending your system. For large systems, maximising self-consumption through battery storage and load scheduling is the main path to bill savings.

What does it mean if Synergy carries a credit forward?

If your DEBS export credit in a quarter is more than your supply charge plus consumption charge combined, Synergy carries the surplus balance forward to your next bill rather than paying it out as cash. This often happens in summer quarters when generation is high and consumption is low. The credit sits on your account and reduces your next bill. Credits continue to roll forward until they are used, or until you reach a point where you can request a refund. Check Synergy’s current policy on credit refunds.

How do I know if my system is performing well?

Compare your current quarter’s generation against the same quarter in a previous year if you have the data. Check your monitoring app for daily generation figures and see whether they line up with what Perth’s solar conditions for that time of year should produce. If your bill shows unexpectedly high consumption despite strong apparent generation, look at when your loads are running. Omnidian, which monitors every system Positive Energy Solutions installs, will pick up and look into any generation shortfall, so if there is a problem, it should be found before you notice it.

Questions About Your Bill?

If your post-solar Synergy bill does not look the way you expected, Positive Energy Solutions is your first point of contact. We can check your system’s generation data, review your bill alongside your monitoring output, and advise on whether any changes to load scheduling, tariff choice, or system configuration would improve your outcome.

About the Author

Jason Wiktorowicz
Sales Manager, Positive Energy Solutions | Perth, WA

Jason has been at the centre of Western Australia’s energy transition for over a decade. As Orchestration Lead on Project Symphony — WA’s largest virtual power plant pilot — and Stream Lead on Project Encore, he worked directly with AEMO, Western Power and Energy Policy WA to shape how distributed energy resources connect and operate on the SWIS. That work included developing and rolling out CSIP-AUS, now mandatory for all new WA grid connections. He also led Emergency Solar Management (ESM), the first program of its kind in WA, VPP for Schools (VPP4S), which provided direct market benefits through Supplementary Reserve Capacity, and REBAR, the WA Residential Battery Rebate scheme.

His earlier career spanned Synergy, Infinite Energy and Curtin University’s Sustainability Policy Institute, where he co-authored peer-reviewed research on net-zero urban precincts, solar integration and peer-to-peer energy trading, published in the journal Urban Planning in 2018.

At Positive Energy Solutions, Jason leads sales with a focus on system design accuracy and long-term performance. Positive Energy Solutions installs solar and battery systems, EV chargers and heat pumps, and holds partner accreditations with Fronius, SigEnergy, iStore and SunPower. Connect with him on LinkedIn.