Amber Electric and Your Smart Home: Automating Wholesale Prices

Amber Electric exposes households to the wholesale electricity price instead of a flat rate, so costs can spike or drop sharply within a day. Smart plugs, energy-monitoring devices and relays let you automate appliances to run during cheaper price windows, reducing manual app-watching while keeping you in control of what switches on and off.

What Is Amber Electric and How Does Wholesale Pricing Work

Amber Electric is an Australian energy retailer that charges customers close to the wholesale spot price of electricity, plus a subscription fee, rather than a fixed per-kilowatt-hour rate. Wholesale prices are set every five minutes based on supply and demand across the National Electricity Market, which covers most of the eastern and southern states. That means your cost per kilowatt-hour can be very low in the middle of a sunny day when rooftop solar is plentiful. It can be considerably higher during evening peaks or cold snaps when demand is high and generation is tighter.

This model suits households that can shift some of their usage to cheaper periods, but it does introduce more variability than a standard retail plan. It's worth reading Amber's own plan terms and any fees before switching, since the model won't suit every household equally.

Wholesale vs Flat-Rate Retail Plans

A flat-rate plan smooths out price volatility so you pay roughly the same rate no matter when you use power. Wholesale-linked plans remove that smoothing, which can mean genuine savings if you shift usage to low-price windows, but it also means exposure to occasional price spikes. Whether this trade-off suits your household depends on how flexible your usage patterns are and how comfortable you are with some bill variability.

Price Alerts and the Amber App

Amber's app typically shows current and forecast pricing and can send alerts for unusually high or low periods. Checking the app manually works for occasional decisions, like deciding when to run the dishwasher. But it's not practical for appliances that need to respond within minutes, or for households where nobody is home to act on an alert. That's where home automation becomes genuinely useful rather than just a novelty.

Why Automation Matters for Wholesale Pricing

Reaction Time Humans Can't Match

Wholesale prices update every five minutes, and a price signal can move from cheap to expensive faster than most people can walk to a power point and flick a switch. Automation rules can be built through a smart plug's own app, a hub, or a platform that can poll price data. Either way, they can react within the same window a human would miss entirely, particularly overnight or while you're at work.

Which Appliances Are Good Automation Candidates

Not every appliance is a sensible automation target. Good candidates tend to share a few traits: they draw meaningful power, they can run at a flexible time without upsetting the household, and they don't need to be instantly available. Pool pumps, hot water systems with storage tanks, dishwashers, washing machines, and EV chargers are commonly cited examples. Fridges, freezers, and medical equipment are generally poor candidates because continuous operation matters more than cost. For a broader look at which household appliances draw the most standby and running power, see our guide on standby power and which appliances cost the most to leave on.

Building a Price-Responsive Smart Home

Smart Plugs for Simple Loads

For lower-power, switchable loads like a pool pump timer override, a washing machine, or a portable heater, a simple energy-monitoring smart plug is often the easiest starting point. The TP-Link Tapo P110 Smart Plug with Energy Monitoring lets you track how much power a connected device is using and control it remotely or via voice. That suits homeowners who want to see the cost impact of an appliance alongside being able to switch it on during a cheap window. The trade-off is that it's designed for general household plug-in loads within its rated capacity, not high-draw fixed circuits, so it won't suit everything you might want to automate.

If you're comparing energy-monitoring plugs more broadly before committing to one ecosystem, it's worth reading our smart energy monitors buying guide and our smart plug buying guide side by side. App compatibility and monitoring detail vary between brands.

DIN Rail Relays for Higher-Power Circuits

Household circuits like hot water systems, pool pumps wired directly into the switchboard, or split loads across a few appliances are usually beyond what a plug-in device is rated for. The Shelly Pro 4PM 4-Channel DIN Rail Relay is built for exactly this kind of scenario, offering remote control and monitoring of up to four separate electrical loads from inside the switchboard. This is genuinely useful for a household running Amber and wanting to schedule a hot water system or pool pump against wholesale price windows. Because it involves fixed wiring, though, installation should be carried out by a licensed electrician. They can confirm the work meets AS/NZS wiring rules for your property.

Monitoring What You're Actually Using

Before automating anything, it helps to know which appliances are actually costing you money and when. The Fibaro Wall Plug Z-Wave Plus is aimed at Z-Wave smart home setups and adds power monitoring to a plug-in outlet. It suits households that already have a Z-Wave hub and want consistent monitoring across several devices rather than a collection of app-specific plugs. The trade-off is that it requires a compatible Z-Wave hub to get the most out of it, so it's a better fit for an established ecosystem than a first smart home purchase.

Automation Rules Worth Considering

A few starting points that Amber households commonly explore, each with its own caveats:

• Pool pump scheduling: Run filtration during forecast low-price windows instead of a fixed morning or evening slot, provided your pump's duty cycle requirements are still met.
• Hot water diversion: Some households time storage hot water heating to coincide with cheap or negative price periods, though tank size and household demand both affect how well this works.
• Dishwasher and washing machine delay: Many appliances have a delay-start function that can be paired with a smart plug's schedule, though the appliance itself needs to support delayed starts safely.
• EV charging windows: Charging overnight or during a cheap solar-driven midday window can meaningfully change charging costs, though this depends on your charger's own scheduling features as much as any smart plug.
• Pre-cooling or pre-heating: Running heating or cooling harder during a cheap window so the home coasts through an expensive one is a common strategy, though it relies on reasonable home insulation to hold the temperature. You can automate curtains, such as with the SwitchBot Curtain 3, to let in passive morning sunlight or close off heat. That can complement this approach by reducing how hard your heating or cooling needs to work in the first place.

Caveats and Limitations

Wholesale pricing automation isn't without risk, and it's worth being realistic about the limitations before building a setup around it.

Price Volatility Cuts Both Ways

Automating around wholesale prices assumes you can reliably access cheap periods, but genuinely extreme price events do occur. An automation rule that isn't carefully bounded could run an appliance during an unexpectedly expensive window. That can happen if the logic isn't set up with sensible price caps. It's worth testing any automation with conservative thresholds before trusting it to run unattended for weeks at a time.

Wiring, Tenancy and Strata Considerations

Any automation involving fixed wiring, like a DIN rail relay in the switchboard, should be installed by a licensed electrician. They can confirm the work is appropriate for your 240V supply and compliant with relevant AS/NZS wiring rules. Renters should check their tenancy agreement and, where relevant, get landlord approval before modifying switchboards or fixed circuits, and strata residents should check by-laws before altering common property or shared metering arrangements. None of this is settled by a blog post, so when in doubt, ask a licensed professional or your body corporate.

Getting Started Checklist

• Confirm whether Amber's wholesale-linked plan genuinely suits your usage pattern before switching, including any subscription fees.
• Start with one or two flexible, non-critical appliances rather than automating everything at once.
• Use a monitoring plug or relay to understand actual usage and cost before writing automation rules.
• Set price caps or safety limits on any automation so appliances don't run unattended during extreme price spikes.
• Get a licensed electrician involved for anything touching fixed wiring or the switchboard.

Sources

• Amber: How Amber works
• Energy Made Easy: Which type of energy tariff is right for you?
• Energy Safe Victoria: Electrical DDIY – Don't do it yourself
• Electrical Safety Office Queensland: Don't do your own electrical work

Where to buy

Retailers stocking the products in this guide. Prices and stock change often, so check the retailer before you buy. We may earn a commission from these links at no extra cost to you.

• TP-Link Tapo P110 Smart Plug with Energy Monitoring: Check price at Amazon AU · Check price at JB Hi-Fi · Check price at Harvey Norman
• Shelly Pro 4PM 4-Channel DIN Rail Relay: Check price at Big W · Check price at eBay AU · Check price at Scorptec
• Fibaro Wall Plug Z-Wave Plus (AU Plug): Check price at Amazon AU
• Anker Solix C1000 Portable Power Station: Check price at u-buy.com.au · Check price at My Generator · Check price at Caravan RV Camping