Household consumers tell us it’s not easy to find effective information or tools to manage their energy bills and usage. EnergyAid collaborated with the St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland to help consumers with energy bill problems in a project funded by a grant from Energy Consumers Australia. This project, the Home Energy Management Service (HEMS), worked with consumers on a personal one-to-one basis, helping them to understand their energy use at home.

EnergyAid helps those in Queensland and across Australia to choose a suitable energy plan, understand their bills, and lower their energy consumption in ways that suit their individual needs. Working with the St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland, HEMS was aimed at exploring the effectiveness of this individualised service free of charge for residents in South East Queensland. HEMS has shown that providing consumers with independent, tailored information, understanding and tools can be more effective in helping consumers to manage their energy costs and usage and to greatly reduce their stress from energy bills.

The research demonstrated the value of providing vulnerable householders with advice that is tailored to the way they live, and so makes it easier to identify what assistance will be effective. That aligns strongly with the findings of our Power Shift project, which found that there is no one size fits all solution. Power Shift developed frameworks to help energy companies and government design better-targeted and more effective services and programs to help consumers manage their energy use and bills.

More information about the project including the final report can be found on the Energy Consumers Australia Grants website.