Increases in the cost of living, retail energy bills and increasing complexity have imposed substantial burdens on many of customers, especially those in vulnerable circumstances.

Customers can experience vulnerability due to a range of circumstances. This is not only a consequence of lower income, but also restrictions on their flexibility, reduced choices, or lack of information or understanding. These experiences can be transient, such as during or following extreme weather events, or more permanent in the case of customer renting or having inflexible energy usage requirements.

Throughout our engagement program, customers have made it repeatedly clear they support a more equitable approach to electricity distribution, including support for vulnerable customers.

What customers told us

We’ve spoken with customers and stakeholders about vulnerability throughout the engagement process. This includes roundtables with other distributors and representatives of social services organisations, as well as our focus groups and interviews with customers’ experiencing vulnerability and the organisations working with them.

What has been highlighted is the clear need for customers to feel informed, and in control, of their energy management decisions:

• Cost of living pressures – customers experiencing vulnerability asked for more information on energy management advice and tariff structures to help them reduce bills. They wanted advice on how much energy different appliances consumed and how this interacts with peak and off-peak tariff rates, which could develop a better understanding towards lowering bills.
• Participating in the energy transition – customers sought education on the energy transition and how vulnerable customers can obtain support to transition to renewables and electrifying their homes. There was an underlying belief that the information is confusing, and industry and government needed to do a better job. They considered distributors had a role to play in ‘clarifying’ the energy transition given their pivotal role. Customers also sought greater government incentives for installing solar panels, particularly landlords.
• Maintaining proactive and transparent communication – rural and regional customers were recognised as facing greater vulnerability due to extreme weather and reliability challenges. Therefore they placed a strong emphasis on the need for clear, timely communication about outages. Vulnerable customers also want us to communicate our vision for the future, particularly regarding backup plans for managing major outages in rural and regional areas.

Initiatives we’re proposing to support vulnerable customers

We're using this feedback received to propose a range of initiatives to support vulnerable customers as part of our next five-year plan. These include:

• Community outreach programs – delivering information and training sessions through community support workers, including in-person literacy programs, to help customers interpret bills, understand their energy usage and reduce their energy costs.
• Energy care hub – providing community sector workers quick and easy access to all energy support programs, updates and connection to other Hub members and experienced utility staff.
• Community energy fund – establishing a community energy fund to support community-led energy initiatives, including energy storage and community solar.
• Energy advisory services – provisioning a data interpretation service to vulnerable customers providing advice on solar options, retail offers, energy efficiency and bill interpretation.
• Accessibility improvements – provisioning of dedicated resources for First Peoples, CALD communities and visually-impaired customers, including providing notifications and warnings of extreme weather events in priority languages.
• Supporting community resilience - providing on-ground support to vulnerable communities, including expanding our pilot emergency response vehicle program.