Robbie’s 'Set and Forget' experience with wholesale energy.

Posted on 15 March 2026

18 Months with Amber

Robbie’s set and forget experience with wholesale energy

Eighteen months ago, I re joined Amber Electric, and like most of my good and bad decisions, it happened pretty quickly.

Before I installed my battery system in early 2024, I had already read about Amber and decided to give them a brief trial. My main goal at the time was to get the quickest return on investment from my solar and battery setup, so I did not feel tied to any specific energy provider. Not long after, some appealing sign up bonuses from other Virtual Power Plants caught my attention and I switched over.

At the time, these offers seemed reasonable on paper, and the quantity of battery power committed was so low that I did not give the decision much thought beyond the sign on bonus, especially as there was no lock in contract.

That changed the night I actually watched my battery do what I had signed it up to do.

The night I realised something wasn’t right

One evening, while connected to another VPP, I noticed my battery discharging heavily into the grid. I knew this was part of the agreement, but I had not seen any large discharges in the two months I had been connected. I was receiving $1 per kWh they discharged, so this particular event caught my attention.

That got me thinking.

If the VPP was happy to take my battery energy and pay me $1 per kWh, what were they getting paid to make that worthwhile?

Here is the clever part from Amber.

Even if you leave them, they still let you access the Amber app to view wholesale prices. So I opened the app to check and honestly, I nearly fell off the dining room chair.

At that exact moment, the wholesale energy export price was sitting around $15 per kWh.

That meant the energy company was effectively making $14 per kWh for energy from my battery, while paying me $1.

I am an impulsive person, so I did not overthink it. I re joined Amber on the spot.

Then, immediately afterwards, I had a brief panic.

I had switched during a power spike, and from my last experience I knew my battery would not be optimised and online with Amber’s SmartShift software for at least a week or more. To make matters worse, after looking on the Amber forums it seemed like it was shaping up to be a week of high spike risk.

That night was restless.

A very good morning

Fortunately, a couple of days after re joining, before my system was even optimised, I hit a rare daytime power spike. Because my solar was exporting freely at the time, I ended up making nearly $150 in feed in credits before lunch.

The days that followed were not perfect. My battery still was not fully optimised, so I was exporting during negative pricing most days, which means paying to give energy away. On top of that, I was even importing power during peak periods, exactly when you do not want to be buying it.

That said, I was not too concerned. I had moved past the initial panic because the daytime spike had already built a solid credit buffer, and I knew that once SmartShift kicked in properly, everything would smooth itself out.

By the end of my first month back with Amber, after accounting for:

• Energy imports of 66 kWh, averaging around $0.70 per kWh
• Amber membership and network charges of $50.89
• Feed in credits of 577 kWh exported, earning $159.65 at an average of around $0.28 per kWh

I finished the month $74 in credit. Not a bad outcome, considering most of that month the system was not even fully optimised with Amber’s SmartShift.

Why I decided to track this properly

Not long after re joining Amber, I told this story to Carlos, Amber’s Channel Manager, while he was visiting our offices. He laughed and said something that really stuck with me.

“You joined that VPP for the sign on bonus, and they likely made more than that from you in one night.”

And he was probably right.

If energy companies can afford to offer no strings attached sign on bonuses and still make it stack up, then energy arbitrage must be pretty lucrative, or at least very lucrative at scale. That got me thinking. If I had already paid for the right infrastructure at my own home, why give that upside away, even if the gains are smaller at an individual level?

That was the moment I stopped talking about the hypothetical benefits of VPP participation and started focusing on my own real world experience. From that point on, I began sharing what I was seeing, both the good and the bad, with clients, colleagues, and within the Amber community online.

I decided that one day I would sit down and write this summary and share the outcome properly with our Solar Power Direct clients, and really anyone who would listen, but without hype, sales spin, or bias. Just real data and lived experience.

To be clear, I genuinely like Amber’s model. I have found it improves return on investment and helps people save more money than solar and batteries alone. In many ways, it feels like the third piece of the puzzle. But it is not perfect, and since re joining I have been open about both the strengths and the shortcomings.

Importantly, I have also held myself to one rule throughout this whole process, set and forget.

I do not micro manage it. I do not try to manually trade energy. I do not tell it when to charge or discharge. I leave it to do its thing, and I take the good with the bad.

That commitment was tested when one of my inverters, the host inverter, needed replacement. During that process, the system was disconnected from Amber’s software. When I tried to re join, I accidentally provided the wrong serial number and check code, which dragged the onboarding process out for over a month.

During that time, I was fully exposed to wholesale pricing. My batteries still operated, but I had nearly 20 kW of solar exporting to the grid during the day, often during negative pricing, which meant it was costing me money to export energy.

Normally, Amber’s software would prevent that. I was tempted to simply turn one of the solar inverters off, but I decided to keep it honest.

Instead, I left it as is and wore the loss.

Why? Because this is exactly the kind of situation a normal homeowner, someone who does not work in the renewable industry, could find themselves in. Many people would not notice an inverter issue straight away, and even if they did, warranty replacements take time. So I chalked it up as part of the real world experience.

That is the context for everything that follows.

What you are reading next is my 18 month, uninterrupted, set and forget experience with Amber Electric, warts and all.

How does Amber actually work?

Amber is a VPP, or Virtual Power Plant. It is a network of lots of small energy systems like home solar panels, batteries, and EVs that are linked together by software and operated as if they were one large power plant.

Individually, each home system is small. Linked together, they can behave like a traditional generator when the grid needs support. That is why it is called virtual.

Many energy retailers have VPPs, however Amber works very differently to a traditional electricity retailer.

On the wholesale market where all energy retailers buy their power, electricity prices change every five minutes.

Most retailers hide volatility. They look at wholesale energy prices over time, average them out, add a safety buffer, then add a profit margin on top. What you see are flat rates or time of use rates that are predictable and comfortable, but heavily padded.

Amber strips all of that away.

Instead of selling you electricity at a fixed price, Amber gives you direct access to the wholesale energy market, the same market retailers buy from, but with zero mark up apart from a small insurance component to protect users from extreme pricing. Amber then charges a flat monthly subscription to manage it for you.

Wholesale pricing is the key difference.

Wholesale electricity prices change every five minutes based on demand, weather, and generation availability. That means prices can be extremely cheap, very expensive, or even negative.

With Amber:

• you pay the wholesale price when you import energy
• you get paid the wholesale price when you export energy, less distribution costs

There is no smoothing and no retailer margin baked into the kWh price. You are completely exposed to the wholesale market, which is why in my opinion you should only enter it with compatible hardware and a battery.

Where the battery comes in

If you did not have a battery, being exposed to wholesale pricing would be stressful and potentially expensive.

The battery is what makes Amber work properly.

Instead of paying high prices during peak demand, your battery can buy energy from the grid when prices are low or negative, and sell energy back to the grid when prices are high during price spikes.

Amber’s software, SmartShift, automates this process. You do not need to watch prices or manually intervene. The AI system is designed to do that for you.

What SmartShift actually does

Once connected to a compatible solar and battery system, SmartShift:

• learns how and when your household uses energy
• predicts how much energy you will need later in the day
• charges the battery when prices are low
• discharges or exports energy when prices are high
• curtails solar when exporting would cost you money

The longer it runs, the better it gets. The first month is essentially a learning phase. After that, decisions become noticeably smarter.

Importantly, Amber passes 100% of the wholesale profits come back to you. They do not tack a margin onto they energy pricing. They make their money from the subscription.

Why this is different to a traditional VPP

Most traditional VPPs benefit the home owner, but the major benefit goes to the retailer who takes a large share of the upside.

Most retail VPPs operate in similar formats:

• offer a sign on bonus
• pay a fixed feed in tariff
• charge time of use rates
• offer incentives for battery discharge, often between $0.50 and $1 per kWh

Amber does not cap the upside. If energy prices spike to $5, $10, or even $20 per kWh and your battery exports during that window, you get paid that price.

That does not happen every day, but it does not need to. A handful of strong events can completely change the outcome over a year.

Why it works best as set and forget

Amber does give you manual controls, but that is not where it shines.

It works best when:

• you let the AI software learn your usage patterns 
• you do not micromanage every decision and trust it
• You try to consume the energy you generate from solar during the day within your own home rather than exporting it.

That is exactly how I use it.

I do not tell it when to charge or discharge. I do not chase price spikes. I let it automate around my lifestyle, not the other way around.

The simple version

If I had to explain Amber in one paragraph, it would be this.

Amber lets you buy and sell electricity at the same wholesale prices energy retailers do, and uses AI optimised software to first learn your energy usage and then your battery to automate when that happens, instead of locking you into fixed rates that protect and pay the retailer, not you.

It is not magic.
It is not going to let you quit your day job.
It is not risk free, although it is also low risk.

With the right hardware and the right expectations, it is one of the most transparent and powerful ways to use solar and batteries, and it can dramatically enhance the return on investment for battery systems.

My System and How I Use Energy

I do not babysit Amber.

Yes, I look at the app, but I do not manually control anything. My goal was never to trade energy for profit. What I was chasing was energy freedom and the quickest return on investment.

In my previous home, I was constantly managing energy use. I had maximum runtime timers on the air conditioning and was always trying to reduce consumption wherever possible just to keep the bills under control.

But we had recently built a new home. It was significantly larger, we had just had our second child, and conserving energy with a baby and an older child in the house was not really a practical option. I also hated the feeling of having to be careful about energy use all the time.

So when it came time to design the system for our new home, my priorities changed completely.

I wanted to be able to:

• run the air conditioning or heating whenever I felt like it
• leave lights on without thinking about it
• comfortably run an electric oil heater in the baby’s room
• stop worrying about power bills altogether

Based purely on my previous energy usage, the “correct” system size would have been something like a 6.6 kW solar system with a 10 kWh battery.

But I knew that system would no longer match how we were actually going to live.

So instead, I deliberately oversized the system and installed:

• just under 20 kW of solar, split evenly east and west to maximise the solar generation window
• two 5 kW hybrid inverters
• 20 kWh of battery storage

I designed this system in December 2023 and it was installed in January 2024. At the time, unlike today, 10 kW single phase hybrid inverters were not common, and even fewer were compatible with Amber.

Because of that, we linked two AlphaESS G3 batteries together in a host and follower configuration. It was a bit of a trial setup, although Alpha had advised it had been tested many times before.

It worked, but not perfectly.

That is rare for Alpha. We manage over 500 Alpha systems, and because of that experience we decided not to offer that configuration to our clients.

Fast forward to today and the options are far better. Tesla, GoodWe and Sigenergy all offer excellent large hybrid systems that integrate seamlessly with Amber and most VPPs.

Modern battery capacity is far larger too, which improves results with Amber. When I installed my 20kWh Battery it was considered large, nowadays its well below the average size we install.

“But you’ve got 20 kW of solar…”

This is usually where I imagine people stop reading and think:

“Well yeah, of course you’re in credit. You’ve got heaps of solar.”

Here is the reality.

Most solar exports happen between 10 am and 4 pm. In South Australia:

• summer and spring often see very low or negative daytime wholesale prices
• winter wholesale prices are usually slightly higher, driven by higher demand and less solar generation

Last year, the South Australian average wholesale export price between 10 am and 4 pm was minus 3 cents. With Amber, exporting during negative pricing actually costs you money, which is why SmartShift actively curtails exports during those periods.

Traditional retailers are not immune to this problem either. They typically use the feed in tariff as a loss leader to attract customers to their network.

If a retailer offers a 10 cent feed in tariff, between 10 am and 4 pm they are often actually losing money on that offer:

• around 3 cents per kWh in wholesale and network costs
• plus the 10 cents per kWh paid to the homeowner

They lose money on the export and then make it back when you import power later in the day at much higher rates. That is why plans with higher feed in tariffs almost always come with higher usage charges.

How I Use Energy.

With my system, I know I have more solar than I strictly need. I also know that exporting energy in the middle of the day usually is not going to make me any money.

When Amber curtails solar exports, what it is really doing is ramping the system down so generation only matches what the house is using once the battery is full. Energy still needs somewhere to go, so the easiest way to prevent loss making exports is simply to generate less.

Rather than letting the system wind itself back, I take a different approach.

I focus on using as much energy as possible during the day. The easiest way to do that is by running the air conditioning or heating strategically using the unit’s built in timers.

In practice, that looks like this.

From 6 am to 8 am, the air conditioning or heating turns on so the house is comfortable when the family wakes up. It then switches off when everyone leaves, which leaves a short window between 8 am and 10 am where some solar can still export if pricing allows.

From 10 am to 4 pm, the system turns back on and runs through the middle of the day. This is typically when feed in prices are low or negative, so any energy generated either needs to be used immediately or stored in the battery.

At peak output, the air conditioning draws around 5 kW. Once the house reaches temperature, it ramps down and idles closer to 1 kW or less.

Outside of that, the house has fairly normal background loads. Two fridges, a standalone freezer, a fish tank, TVs, computers and game systems on standby. This adds up to a base load of roughly 500 to 800 watts.

What this means in practice is:

• with a system capable of generating around 10 kW and a 20 kW solar array, I rarely need to pay for daytime household energy
• even when cloud cover rolls in, wholesale daytime prices are usually so cheap that I might only be paying a few cents during poor weather
• because of that, I leave the air conditioning programmed this way year round

I still export some solar when prices are not negative. Because the array is split east and west, I have a very wide generation window. In summer, I am often still exporting energy right up until 7 pm.

Most importantly, the house is already at a comfortable temperature by the time people get home.

Because the home is well insulated and already close to the target temperature, any heating or cooling required in the evening uses far less energy. That gives me significantly more range out of the battery overnight because it is not being drained by large air conditioning loads after sunset.

That is how the system works for me. Not by chasing feed in credits during the day, but by using as much energy as possible when it is cheap or abundant, with the battery there to carry me through when it matters.

Why Batteries Are the Game Changer

With Amber, batteries matter more than massive solar.

Wholesale pricing means you can:

• charge your battery cheaply, or sometimes even get paid to use energy
• sell that same energy later when demand spikes

Solar still matters, especially for self sufficiency, but batteries give you control over wholesale energy price fluctuations.

That said, I still recommend installing as much solar as you can reasonably afford. Market conditions change, and being able to charge your battery yourself keeps you protected long term.

The Good and Bad

Amber is not perfect, and that is important to say upfront. But in my experience, the good far outweighs the bad, as long as people understand how it works and have compatible hardware.

The good

• Access to true wholesale pricing
  You are seeing and paying the same underlying energy prices that retailers do, rather than a smoothed and marked up version.

• SmartShift software that actually does the work
  It learns your energy profile over time, automates battery charging and discharging, prevents exporting during negative pricing, and improves decisions the longer it runs.

• One hundred percent of wholesale profits go back to the user
  Amber does not skim the upside. Their revenue comes from the subscription, not your energy.

• Clear, simple business model
  A flat monthly subscription with no lock in contracts.

• You can take control if you want to
  Manual controls exist, even though the system is clearly designed to be automated.

• A lot of information available online
  There is no shortage of documentation, guides, FAQs and explanations if you are willing to read and learn how it works.

The Bad

• It is software, and software is not perfect
  Like any cloud based system, things can occasionally misbehave.

• It relies on a few moving parts
  Internet connectivity, communication with third party servers, communication with the inverter, and signals from the distributor.

• Amber is a software company, not a traditional retailer
  Almost all support is online. If you expect phone support for quick questions, you will be disappointed.
  
  

Why Amber Gets Mixed Reviews

If you look up Amber Electric reviews online, you will find plenty of mixed feedback. In my view, that is usually not because Amber does not work. It is primarily because:

• People sign up without understanding how the wholesale energy market behaves and do not understand why they get charged for exporting energy at certain times.
• People sign up without a battery, are happy until their first power spike, then receive a large bill and blame Amber.
• People sign up with incompatible hardware and cannot control exports, so they get charged for sending unwanted energy to the grid
• People get confused by the app and reach for the phone, then become frustrated when they cannot reach someone immediately

There are also battery sales companies out there spruiking Amber as a get rich quick solution. I do not believe that is true, and it sets completely the wrong expectations - although in my opinion it will put you in front over other options.

Most of these issues could be fixed with a large call centre explaining Amber and answering basic tech questions all day long. But Amber is a low cost operation by design. They do not make money on energy margins, and battery manufacturers take a portion of the subscription fee for access to their hardware APIs.

The trade off is less hand holding and an expectation that people will read the guides, FAQs and videos that Amber provides, which do actually answer most questions.

When I talk to clients about Amber, I always:

• Check their hardware is compatible
• Show them the Amber app from my own home
• Give a simple explanation of the wholesale energy market
• Make it very clear that Amber operates almost entirely online
• Enrol them into our Amber installer fleet for priority onboarding

I believe when you join Amber understanding how it works, it becomes much easier to just let it do its job, like I have done for the last 18 months.

My Own Experience With Support

Personally, in 18 months I have only needed to contact Amber twice. Once during initial setup. Once after replacing a faulty inverter.

Both times it was handled through the app and email.

I do not think the lack of phone support is a deal breaker, but it is something people need to know upfront so expectations are aligned before joining, as its only human to be frustrated when you cant reach a company you pay each month.

In our own installer fleet, only a small handful of clients I have spoken to have had a genuinely bad experience and moved back to a traditional retailer. Most recently, it was a client who found themselves constantly checking the app, over thinking every movement, and becoming frustrated that they could not get immediate answers by phone.

In that case, I recommended moving to Origin Loop. It is a solid VPP that operates more traditionally and offers very strong communication -  The end of year position might be better with Amber, but there is no point being stressed about your VPP.

Is Amber for You?

If you feel like you will need to constantly micromanage your system, do not want to understand wholesale pricing, or expect phone based support, then Amber may not be the right fit for you.

But if you are comfortable giving the system time to learn your home and automate your battery, understand or are willing to learn the basic concept of wholesale energy, and want to get more out of your solar and battery system, Amber is incredibly powerful and largely stress free.

Overall, I genuinely believe the good far outweighs the bad. And because there is no lock in contract, it is worth most people trying, provided they have been properly informed.

One smart improvement Amber has made recently is giving our team access to their team calendar. Now once a battery is installed, we can book a telephone meeting directly with an Amber team member so questions can be answered before a client joins. That alone would prevent most of the issues people run into and will probably save me a few hours of explanations each week.

The Numbers. 

My usage over 18 months

• Total Consumption: 14,012 kWh

• Solar & Battery Self Consumption: 12,015 kWh

• Self Sufficiency: 85.74%

• Grid Imports: 1,997 kWh

• Total Grid Import Cost: $579

• Average Import Cost: $0.29 cents per kWh

• Exports: 10,375 kWh

• Total Export Credits: $2,830

• Average Export Credit: $0.30 cents per kWh

• Total Network and Membership Fees: $938.90

• Average Network and Membership Fees: $1.70 per day
  

Imports comparison

With Amber, my average energy purchase rate was 29 cents per kWh. For comparison, fixed rate plans in South Australia are typically around 44 cents per kWh, with peak rates pushing above 57 cents per kWh.

Exports comparison

With Amber, my 18 month average export price was 30 cents per kWh, with an average of around 19 kWh exported per day. This data is not based on a small sample size.

In comparison, AGL’s current standard export rate is around 2 cents per kWh. In the past 18 months some retailers have offered promotional export rates of 10 cents for the first portion of daily exports and 5 cents thereafter. Using the same average export volume, that would equate to roughly $1.45 per day, versus my 18 month average of around $5.70 per day with Amber.

Most of the export credits did not come from daily solar exports. They came from roughly two dozen strong export events during price spikes, generally in the evening between 6pm - 8pm mostly in summer and winter.

Best Month: June 2025
Average Export Credit: approximately 98 cents per kWh
Total Credits: $410 - A significant portion of this was earned on 26 June, with around $162 earned in a two hour window between 5 pm and 7 pm.

Final Amber outcome over 18 months

Exports: +$2,830
Imports: -$579
Fixed costs: -$939

Final credit (18 Months): +$1,290
Annualised outcome: $857

Data Table: For those who like to see the numbers, I extracted 18 months worth of bills into a table.  

What If I Did Not Have Solar or a Battery?

If I used the same amount of energy without solar or a battery on a standard retailer plan with a flat rate of 40 cents per kWh and an average $1 per day network connection fee, the outcome would look like this:

Total Consumption: 14,012 kWh
Self Sufficiency: 0 percent
Grid Imports: 14,012 kWh
Grid Import Cost: $5,604.80
Supply Charge: $544

Total cost (18 Months): $6,148.80

That is a $7,438.80 difference compared to finishing with a $1,290 credit, which is why I am so enthusiastic about batteries becoming affordable and the opportunity with Amber Electric.

What If I Was on Another VPP?

Because I have all of this data, I can model what it would look like if I was on another VPP. I have used AGL as the comparison because they also retail batteries and often offer strong point of sale discounts in exchange for lock in contracts.

Using the exact same usage, here is how it plays out.

AGL VPP + Fixed Rate offer.

• Usage Rate: 46.9 cents per kWh
• Standard Feed in Credit: 2 cents per kWh
• VPP Battery Discharge Credits: $1 per kWh, capped at 250 kWh per year
• Loyalty Credit: $185 per year
• Supply Charge: $1.16 per day

Calculated for 18 months

Imports:
1,997 kWh * $0.469 = $937

Exports:
VPP Battery Discharge Credits: 250 kWh per year * 1.5 years = 375kWh * $1/kWh = $375
Remaining Solar Exports: 10,000 kWh * $0.02 = $200

Loyalty credits:
$185 * 1.5 = $277

Supply Charges:
$1.16 * 544 days = $631

Total Cost (18 Months): $993
Annualised Total Cost (12 Months): $662 

The Real Difference - Side By Side Comparison (18 Months)

Amber Electric: $1,290 Credit
AGL VPP: $993 Cost
No Solar or Battery: $6,148.80 Cost

That is a swing of approximately $2,280 over the same period between AGL & Amber Electric.

Not because AGL is terrible, but because retailer margins quietly add up and wholesale volatility heavily favours batteries.

When you look at the difference between wholesale and retail outcomes over 18 months, it becomes clear how poor value it is to lock yourself into a five year VPP in exchange for a $1,000 point of sale discount on a battery with them.

Final Thoughts

Amber is for everyone. But you need to ensure you have compatible hardware, a battery, and realistic expectations.

It is one of the most powerful ways to take control of your energy. But its software which relies on multiple moving factors - Its not always perfect, but in my experience when you look at its results over a long period the good far outweigh the bad. 

One thing I have learnt is that maximising value during a price spike is not just about having the biggest battery. You need to have an inverter that can meet the maximum export limit. Spikes are infrequent and often short lived, the faster you can send energy to the grid during a spike, the more value you capture.

Future Testing: I'm moving house soon, so on the next system I install the thing im most excited to test over a period will be the benefit of having an EV and using its massive inbuilt battery to charge and discharge to the grid with a bi-directional Sigenergy EV DC Charger with Amber Smartshift. Then i'll be able to calculate home energy savings and fuel savings into one report. 
 

Closing: If you are a Solar Power Direct client, we can set you up properly, add you to our installer fleet, and help you get the most out of Amber from day one. Also if you have read this far and happen to pop past our showroom, please say hi and let me know you read this - so I know the Sunday I spent writing it was worth it.

Helpful Links:
[Amber Video] Wholesale Pricing Explained
[Amber Video] Amber for Batteries App Walkthrough

Amber ROI Calculator - A powerful tool applies amber users historical energy data to model savings and return on investment for a new battery system.

Join Amber - Make sure you select Solar Power Direct as your installer so your account links to our installer portal.