Your meter and your billVerified 6 November 20264 min read

Getting your meter data from Essential Energy

Regional New South Wales: the form, and the two boxes to tick if you have solar.

How your file gets from Essential Energy to your report

You. Have these ready. Your meter number (NMI), from your last bill. Your full property address. Your name and phone number. An email address.

The way Essential Energy works, from our guide below. Tap a stop to hold it.

What this means for you

The file is your data, and Essential Energy has to give it to you if you ask. You don't have to say why.

In short

You ask Essential Energy for your meter data file (NEM12) with a form. Choose Consumption and Export, both ticked when it asks what you want. When the file comes, you add it to your report.

Essential Energy is the network for regional New South Wales. A network is the company that owns the poles and wires, whoever bills you.

You ask for your meter data file (NEM12) with a short form. If you have solar, two boxes on that form matter more than the rest. Not sure this is your network? Find your network.

Power poles and lines along an Australian street at golden hour

Fill in a formUp to 10 business days

Have these ready

  • Your meter number (NMI), from your last bill
  • Your full property address
  • Your name and phone number
  • An email address

The steps

  1. Open Essential Energy's Retail Customer (Single NMI Request) form.

    On screen Retail Customer (Single NMI Request)

    Open www.essentialenergy.com.au (opens in a new tab)

  2. Fill in your name, phone and email, then the property address, the meter number (NMI), suburb, postcode and state.

  3. Under Type of data request tick both Consumption and Export.

    On screen Consumption, Export

    If you have solar, tick both. Consumption on its own may leave out what you sent back to the grid.

  4. Type a From date and To date covering the last 12 months, as dd/mm/yyyy.

  5. Tick the confirmation that you are the customer and the NMI is from your last bill, pass the picture check and Submit.

  6. Wait for the file. The rules say up to 10 business days.

Pick this, not these

Choose Consumption and Export, both ticked

There is no Detailed or Summary choice on this form. Essential says interval data comes as the standard meter data file.

What you get. A .csv file, the standard meter data file, most likely by email

What to watch for

  • Essential does not state a two-year limit or a free-request cap; the national rules still apply.
  • Essential's Queensland border customers use the same form with State set to QLD.
  • Enquiries: metering.services@essentialenergy.com.au.

Still checking. Does ticking Consumption alone leave out the solar export channel, and is the file emailed?

When the file arrives

  1. Step 1

    Upload your bill

    We read what you pay now, exactly, from your own bill.

  2. Step 2

    We price every plan in your area

    Every plan in the government's open plan data, priced on your use.

  3. Step 3

    Stay or Switch

    If staying put is the better plan, that is what the report says.

Open your PowerLens report and choose Add meter data, free. Upload the file as it arrived, without opening and saving it in Excel first. No report yet? Start with your bill.

If our upload can't read the file, it will say so. What a good file looks like.

Other networks and retailers are in the full list. Back to the guides.

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Check your own plan

Upload your bill and we price every plan in your area against it.

Upload your bill
  • The check is free. You only pay if we find you a better plan.
  • Retailers never pay us.
  • Your bill file is deleted once we've read it.