Energy retail price offers comparison report 2018-19 - Archived

02 Sep 2019

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Under the Electricity Act 1996 and Gas Act 1997, the Essential Services Commission provides to the South Australian Minister for Energy and Mining an annual Energy Retail Price Offers Comparison Report.

The 2018-19 report discusses electricity and gas retail offer prices that were generally available to small customers (residential and small business) during the period 30 June 2018 to 30 June 2019.

The key observations of the Report are that:

  • Average annual residential electricity retail standing offer prices remained relatively unchanged (-0.04 percent) but market offer prices fell by three percent over the 12 months to 30 June 2019. Average annual small business electricity retail standing offer and market offer prices fell by one percent and three percent respectively over the same period. 
  • Average annual residential gas retail standing offer and market offer prices both fell by two percent over the 12 months to 30 June 2019. Average annual small business gas retail standing offer prices increased by one percent but average annual retail market offer prices fell by one percent over the same period. 
  • There was a wide range of discounts between retail standing offers and market offers. For residential electricity customers, the discount between a retailer’s standing offer and average market offer ranged from one percent to 30 percent. For residential gas customers, the discount between a retailer’s standing offer and their average market offer ranged from six percent to 20 percent.
  • There was potential for small customers to reduce their annual energy bills by moving from standing offers to market offers or, if already on a market offer, by considering alternative market offers. Customers can use the Australian Energy Regulator’s (AER) Energy Made Easy website to compare all available offers.
  • The available evidence shows that South Australian solar customers had a choice of offers available to them and were not paying more for electricity than non-solar customers. Further, electricity retailers were recognising the benefit of fed-in solar electricity through offering a R-FiT (retailer-paid component of the solar feed-in tariff) to solar customers. This suggests that the Commission does not need to re-set a minimum R-FiT at this stage.