Victorian Energy Market Report

We regularly report on the performance of the Victorian energy market

Our Victorian Energy Market Report helps customers piece together key facts about the energy industry. 

We provide updates on the energy market throughout the year.

These reports provide information on:

• compliance of energy licensees with the energy rules
• prices of electricity and gas retail offers throughout the year
• performance of energy companies in areas such as customer service and assistance for customers in payment difficulty.

We also publish the results of our audits of energy businesses, and the standard contract prices published by retailers.

Read our latest update on the Victorian energy market

Some of the key highlights for this update showed that disconnections for non-payment have stopped. The price of energy offers for residential and small business customers have decreased, and there are smaller discounts compared to the last two years.

Our update provides important information about the Victorian energy market from April to June 2020 on areas such as:

• the impacts of coronavirus on customers
• disconnections for energy customers for non-payment
• the price of energy offers available in the market as at 30 June 2020
• recent changes to the energy rules
• how energy companies are complying with the energy rules and preforming against their regulatory obligations
• newly licensed energy companies.

Our 2018-19 energy market report

Our latest annual energy market report provides a summary of the state's energy market in 2018-19.

Key findings of the report include:

Prices:

• Average prices for electricity and gas offers stabilised, when all discount conditions are met
• One in three offers have no discounts, double the proportion from the previous year
• The number of offers with high discounts (30 per cent or more) decreased by 30 per cent 
• 85 per cent of electricity customers were on discounted offers, with three out of four being ‘pay on time’ discounts
• Around one in five electricity customers missed their conditional discounts and paid on average $188 in additional costs

Payment Difficulty Framework - Electricity:

• Each month since 1 January 2019, an average of 64,508 customers received tailored assistance
• 55 per cent of customers entered a tailored assistance program with less than $500 in arrears (31 per cent previously under hardship programs covering electricity and gas) as they are receiving assistance earlier than in the past
• The average arrears for new participants who couldn’t cover their ongoing costs is $1,366

Payment Difficulty Framework - Gas:

• Each month since 1 January 2019, an average of 46,975 customers received tailored assistance
• 64 per cent of customers commenced a tailored assistance program with less than $500 in arrears as they are entering earlier than in the past
• The average arrears for new participants who couldn’t cover their ongoing costs is $1,042

Disconnections and utility relief grants:

• Residential and small business gas and electricity disconnections for non-payment reduced to 36,729 (down by 34 per cent) from 55,474
• 484 gas and electricity customers were wrongfully disconnected for non-payment (down from 502 in previous year)
• 29,108 utility relief grants paid to people who each received up to $650

 Compliance: 

• $350,000 in penalties paid by distributors for failing to notify customers of planned outages
• $340,000 in penalties paid by retailers

Customer service:

• 2.9 complaints per 100 electricity customers reported by retailers (same as previous year)
• 2.2 complaints per 100 gas customers reported by retailers (same as previous year)
• 55 seconds average wait time for customer calls to be answered (down from 88 seconds)

Licensing:

• Issued 23 new energy licences (four wholesale, three gas retail, four electricity retail, and 12 generation)

This report also covers average price changes in the energy offers available for residential and small business customers and provides an overview of our auditing activities.