What we've done so far

It's difficult to take customer values into consideration in financial assessment of investment decisions. This is because of the limited quantitative measures of customer value relevant to network services.

In 2020, we partnered with CitiPower and United Energy to begin building quantitative evidence for how customers value the services we provide to help inform our future decisions.

In 2024, in preparation for our 2026-2031 regulatory proposal, we repeated the exercise again. There were multiple motivators for this, including a changed economic climate, adoption of new approaches, embedding and building on other customer engagement work, and accounting for new emerging customer needs (such as energy storage).

Results of the 2024 analysis

What we found in the new customer value analysis is that our customers want to see:

• improved network resilience to minimise the risk and impact of long-duration outages due to extreme weather events
• a reduction in the equity gap between average and worst-served reliability in regional and remote areas
• increasing local energy battery storage, which also minimises the wastage of renewable energy
• removal of restrictions on solar exports, as these restrictions are viewed as a waste of renewable energy
• reductions in network emissions, as customers expect businesses to decarbonise and commit to net zero targets
• community resilience initiatives to support communities in the event of a long-duration outage.

Read the report

Click here to read the 2024 customer vales analysis report

Throughout May and June 2024, we conducted a series of focus groups and forums with a diverse range of Powercor 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-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:

• worst served customers
• network and community resilience
• large scale renewable energy
• 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. The majority of customers wanted reliability to be at least maintained, as they were satisfied with current service.
• Compared to residential customers, small to medium business customers were typically more cost-sensitive, with a higher proportion preferencing ‘zero cost’ options more consistently.
• Overall, there was an even split between customers’ willingness to pay across outlined service levels, with most wanting improvements to some degree.
• 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 expressed a desire for Powercor to make service level improvements that resulted in more equitable service across the community, feeling that the energy distributor was best placed in making improvements to enhance network resilience and improve performance for worst served customers.

Trade off evaluations report

To learn more read the Powercor trade off evaluation 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.

In March and April 2024, we teamed up with CitiPower and United Energy to hold a series of community workshops. These workshops were held in Ballarat, Red Hill and online, and sought feedback on initiatives addressing network resilience and regional and rural energy supply.

Local councils, emergency services, advocates for vulnerable groups, community groups and other stakeholders came together to explore potential solutions to enhance the resilience of the local electricity network and tackle network capacity and reliability improvements.

What we sought feedback on

A range of solutions were proposed, including:

• Constructing feeder tie lines to support worst-served customers at the end of long radial rural lines where no alternate 'back-feed' supply is available
• An IT tool to support prioritisation during wide-scale outages
• Development of local micro-grids; a distribution network that operates independently of, or supplementary to, the primary distribution grid, providing reliable and resilient electricity supply during and after extreme weather events
• Additional community liaison officers and mobile emergency response vehicles to engage with community groups and local government to support improved resilience and during extreme weather events
• Operation of rapid earth fault current limiters to mitigate bushfire and electrocution risks.

What we heard

Participants were in favour of many of the initiatives proposed and provided insightful feedback and suggestions, including:

• Prioritising certain strategic locations and offering future-proofed solutions when supporting worst-served customers, particularly customers facing ‘energy poverty’ and reliability challenges
• Making information gleaned from new IT tools available to the community and emergency response agencies to aid better decision-making
• Thinking strategically about how micro-grids are funded and integrated with existing infrastructure and energy sources, such as solar or community batteries
• Increasing the number of community liaison officers and reconsidering the areas they manage to better support communities
• Ensuring REFCL operating modes are flexible, to balance safety considerations with reliable service provision.

Next steps and have your say

Our proposal for the 2026-31 period, including support for vulnerable customers, will be published for consultation in August 2024.

If you have any questions and feedback about vulnerability or our engagement program, please use this form to get in contact.

To stay up to date, register to receive email updates.

To learn more, read the full engagement report.

As we continue planning for the 2026-31 regulatory reset period, we are exploring new ways to support our vulnerable customers to allow them to participate, and benefit more fully as the energy system transitions to greener forms of electricity.

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.

Below is a summary of the what we've heard, and you can learn more in the full Vulnerable Customers Engagement Report (PDF, 1MB).

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.

Next steps and have your say

Our proposal for the 2026-31 period, including support for vulnerable customers, will be published for consultation in August 2024.

If you have any questions and feedback about vulnerability or our engagement program, please use this form to get in contact.

To stay up to date, register to receive email updates.

In November 2023 we held the Energy Transition Summit to explore emerging network challenges presented by the growth in new technologies, such as rooftop solar and electric vehicles (EVs).

During this session, attendees debated preferred service levels for these technologies and shared additional ideas and considerations to feed into our plans. Stakeholders demonstrated a collective commitment to an equitable and sustainable energy transition, navigating challenges in solar exports and EV integration.

In October 2023, we teamed up with AusNet, CitiPower, Jemena and Powercor to host a Resilient Network Investment Framework customer workshop.

Over 70 participants representing 40 organisation including local councils, emergency services, business and community groups came together to help shape the development of a Resilient Network Investment Framework, including joint resilience investment principles.

In December 2023, we held a forum with special interest group stakeholders to ‘pressure test’ a set of future scenarios and assumptions for the energy network.

During the session, participants considered models based on the period taken to achieve net-zero carbon emissions. Stakeholders explored and debated the differences across scenarios relating to scenario assumptions and uncertainties, identified nuances by network, and aligned on the most likely future energy scenarios.

2023 has been an important year for our regulatory reset project, engaging with our customers and stakeholders to assist in the development of our 2026-2031 business plan.

Listening to the views of our customers is critical in ensuring we deliver a business plan that meets the needs, expectations and preferences of our customers who rely on the electricity distributed by our network.

Below are some of the year’s highlights from our largest customer engagement program ever, as well as more opportunities to have your say before our draft business plan is published in August 2024.

Through the Regulatory Reset engagement program, we've been talking to customers and stakeholders about the opportunities and challenges related to the renewable energy transition.

The Customer Energy Futures: Service Level Options Paper is a reflection of the views received and the options we have developed to address the challenges in accommodating new technologies which is changing how and when customers use the electricity grid.

In November and December 2023 we invited our customers and stakeholders to read the Service Level Options Paper and tell us how they would like to use their customer energy resources (resources that can generate or store power for customers).