Trade off evaluation workshops

Throughout May and June 2024, we conducted a series of focus groups and forums with a diverse range of CitiPower customers to ensure their primary preferences and needs were being heard and reflected in the draft regulatory proposal.

The evaluation sessions engaged with residential and small to medium business customers to understand the trade-offs being made between proposed discretionary initiatives.

The discretionary initiatives tested has three to four proposed improvement levels with an additional cost associated with each level. These costs would impact the average annual energy bill for residential and small-medium business customers.

The discretionary initiatives considered included:

• sustainability
• supporting additional solar energy exports
• regional and rural supply
• electrification
• average reliability.

The purpose of the program was to understand the trade-offs customers make between their willingness to pay for discretionary initiatives and the respective outcomes of service level improvements.

Main findings

• The majority of customers were in support of improving service levels of each initiative presented, except reliability. Customers wanted reliability to be maintained, as they were satisfied with current reliability service.
• Compared to residential customers, small to medium business customers were often less willing to invest, preferencing ‘zero cost’ options more consistently. Small to medium business customers were generally more selective with what they were willing to invest in.
• Overall, there was an even willingness to pay across levels of investment for residential and SMB customers.
• Residential and small to medium business customers recognised the value of investing in discretionary initiatives beyond compliance costs to achieve service level improvements. However, they were unwilling to invest in the proposed maximum bill impacts associated with the highest level of improvement across initiatives.
• Customers voiced strong support for initiatives that supported renewable energy, particularly supporting additional solar and electrification. However, within in the quantitative insights there were no significant differences in sustainable versus non-sustainable initiatives.
• Whilst customers supported the customers experiencing vulnerability initiative, it was believed that it was the responsibility of the state and federal governments to implement this service. Customers felt that there were other agencies who were better equipped to manage the necessary support, when compared with CitiPower.

Trade off evaluations report

To learn more read the CitiPower trade off evaluations report.

The outcomes from the trade-off evaluations report are being used to refine investments being built into the 2026-2031 regulatory proposal, due for release in September 2024.