The goal was to identify:

• key motivators, and barriers that influence customer willingness to modify energy consumption habits
• customer awareness, understanding, and responsiveness to time-of-use energy tariffs, acceptance of network control, preferences on meter upgrading and feedback on overall investments being built into the regulatory proposal.

What customers told us

• Shifting consumption habits: residential customers were more willing to shift their energy usage than SMB customers. Lowering energy bills was the main motivator to shift, and their current activities were the biggest barrier for both residential and SMB customers
• Electrification: compared to residential, SMB customers were more likely to consider electrifying their gas appliances in the near future
• Time of use tariffs: across both Residential and SMB customers, about half were familiar with the concept of time-of-use tariffs
• Network control: residential customers were less likely to allow for external control than SMB customers however, more SMB customers indicated the improvement of grid reliability as an incentive than residential, and were also more willing to allow the network to manage their appliances than residential customers
• Meter upgrades: both residential and SMB customers preferred for metres to be proactively replaced to prevent failures
• Overall investment: around half of both residential and SMB customers felt that the bill impact from the improvements represented value for the service they received.

What’s next

Outcomes from the survey report are being used to refine investments being built into the final 2026-2031 regulatory proposal, due for submission to the Australian Energy Regulator in January 2025.

There will be opportunities to get involved and have your say in 2025. Visit the CitiPower Regulatory Reset project page and click +Follow at the top of this page to receive email updates.