Report: Big Three Gentailers Continue To Dominate Australian Retail Energy Market
June 25,2019
The Australian Energy Regulator has published a quarterly retail energy market performance report
The electricity retail market remains fairly concentrated with 66% of residential and 62% of small business electricity customers with "Tier 1" retailers. Tier 1 retailers include AGL, Origin and EnergyAustralia
Gas continues to be more concentrated than electricity across all segments. 85% of gas residential customers and 93% of gas small business customers remain with Tier 1 retailers.
"Although Tier 1 retailers continue to dominate the market, customers have increasingly switched away from Tier 1 retailers across most jurisdictions," the report said
The report said that the number of electricity and gas residential and small business customers on market contracts (e.g, not default or "standard" contracts) continues to
increase, except for electricity customers in Tasmania. "This suggests that customers are increasingly shopping
around and engaging with the market," the report said
At March 2019, 667,377 residential electricity customers and 106,507 small business electricity customers in competitive markets remained on standard contracts. This excludes customers in price regulated jurisdictions, including regional Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT.
The report also details levels for non-hardship debt, payment plans, disconnections, and complaints