Victoria Sees More Retail Energy Customers On Hardship Programs, More Disconnections
February 26,2019
The Essential Services Commission’s of Victoria, Australia released an annual retail energy market report which, "shows customers continue to pay big for not meeting discount conditions, while call waiting times to energy companies have almost doubled in 12 months."
Key findings of the report include:
• more people were signed up to hardship programs (up 25 per cent)
• residential disconnections increased substantially (up 20 per cent) from 46,083 to 55,474
• electricity customers disconnected multiple times for not paying bills increased by 51 per cent.
• call wait times almost doubled from an average 46 seconds to 88 seconds (up 91 per cent)
• average residential electricity and gas prices increased up to 16 per cent
• average debt for new participants was $1,377 - up 11 per cent on 2016-17
• nine licences were granted, including six new generation licences (two solar farms and four wind farms).