More than 15,000 First Nations households, equating to about 65,000 people, access electricity via prepayment supply arrangements. When credit runs out, the home is automatically disconnected, cutting off access to lights, power, refrigeration and cooling.
Energy Consumers Australia provided funding through our Grants Program to conduct the first national investigation into First Nations’ experiences of prepayment for electricity. This extensive research was conducted by Original Power and the First Nations Clean Energy Network in partnership with Western Sydney University, Tangentyere Aboriginal Corporation, Nulungu Research Institute and Jabalbina Aboriginal Corporation.
The research culminated in The Right to Power: Keeping First Nations Communities on Prepayment Connected report. It found that First Nations energy customers using prepayment are among the world’s most energy insecure, experiencing an average of 49 disconnections a year - or nearly one a week. For these households, losing electricity supply means losing the ability to safely store medicines and food, or to keep homes at safe temperatures.
Key Recommendations
The report has six key recommendations:
- Require better reporting by energy retailers, and performance-based monitoring, to achieve meaningful reductions in disconnection events.
- Adopt clearly defined energy hardship metrics, including an obligation for energy retailers to pro-actively identify and respond to customers in financial hardship.
- Remove barriers that exclude prepayment customers from accessing, owning and enjoying the full benefits of consumer energy resources (including rooftop solar), energy efficiency and insulation upgrades, and community microgrids.
- Implement measures to assist vulnerable people during extreme temperatures and other emergency events.
- Implement national initiatives including a Priority Services Register that improves coordination of targeted support for prepayment and other vulnerable customers.
- Remove mandated prepayment arrangements and provide prepayment customers with the same consumer protections and choice of energy services that non prepayment meter customers enjoy.
The research highlights the urgent need for prepayment reform, to ensure equal access to fair and affordable energy for First Nations communities. There is considerable scope and opportunity for existing processes to include prepayment customers, and to bring regulation, reporting requirements and policy responses for prepayment customers in line with National Electricity Market rules and regulatory standards.
