AGL and Origin Energy see customers sign to fortnightly or monthly billing Some 50,000 homes in Britain were without power on Christmas Day following recent storms. Fortnightly and monthly billing becoming popular ... Helping to cope with soaring costs of power. THOUSANDS of electricity customers are signing up to fortnightly and monthly billing programs every week in a bid to cope with the soaring costs of power. Two of the nation's largest energy suppliers, AGL and Origin Energy have both seen significant spikes in customers flocking to their frequent billing programs as more customers shy away from traditional quarterly utility bills. AGL introduced monthly billing options in October and the company's general manager of marketing and sales Mark Brownfield said since then the uptake had "skyrocketed." "More than 1000 people a day across the country are signing up to receive their power bills every four weeks," he said. The main reason is that people are taking a more active role in managing their energy costs. For Victorian customers with smart meters actual electricity usage is calculated each month and the bills are then issued. For all other customers with manually-read meters a sophisticated algorithm is used to determine estimated energy use and then realigned with actual meter reads every three months. Australian Bureau of Statistics data found over the past four years household electricity costs had risen by around 59 per cent nationally. Mr Brownfield said energy bills could also be broken down into daily reads so customers know how much money they have spent into each month. "People can check mid-month transactions, it's like logging on to your bank account, they can check their bill balance," he said. They are knowing what they use and they are breaking it down into bite-sized pieces to better manage it and they are seeking more transparent information along the way. Rival energy supplier Origin Energy revamped its frequent EasiPay billing program this month to allow customers to receive bills weekly, fortnightly or monthly. A spokesman said the uptake of more frequent billing continued to climb. "We've seen a 25 per cent increase in the uptake of the product (in December)," he said. More than half of our EasiPay customers elect to make fortnightly payments and we'd suggest this is because it aligns with many customers' pay schedules. Independent consumer advocate Christopher Zinn said quarterly bills suited the "well-off" and said he was surprised frequent billing had only recently become available. "It's amazing it's taken electricity so long to do this," he said. Having the choice is a great thing for consumers and it doesn't surprise me so many people are jumping on board.