The roundtable session engaged with customers from special interest groups such as local councils, community advocacy groups and sustainability groups to understand support for both the overarching proposal, including the bill impact, as well as initiatives that have been developed by the business based on customer feedback from earlier engagements.

The initiatives included:

• Energy transition
• Metering
• Customer assistance package
• Innovation fund
• Regional and rural options

The purpose of the program was to identify initiative refinements to be considered in the final regulatory proposal submission. We partnered with CitiPower, United Energy and independent, third-party engagement experts at Forethought to deliver this program.

What we heard

• Customers wanted to ensure regional and rural equity as well as vulnerable customer equity was considered, and expressed a desire for collaboration with community to support decisions that deliver optimal and localised solutions
• Customers agreed on the importance of upgrading meters without interruptions, favouring a targeted rollout approach to optimise the rollout effectiveness without compromising the meter benefits
• Customers supported the customer assistance package initiatives however, suggested increased investment was needed to deliver more meaningful impact, in particular for farmers and other vulnerable groups facing energy poverty in regional and rural Victoria
• Customers strongly supported the innovation fund initiative and its overarching criteria however, expressed a desire for additional criteria demonstrating customer benefits
• There was strong support for the proposed investment in community support to manage responses to outages, emphasising the need to prioritise vulnerable customers.

What’s next

Outcomes from the roundtable report are being used to refine initiatives 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 Powercor Regulatory Reset project page and click +Follow to receive email updates.