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Energy Consumer Sentiment Survey Findings: December 2016

Energy Consumers Australia today published the results of its second bi-annual survey of the attitudes and activity of household and small business energy consumers. The survey of 2,300 small consumers was undertaken during August and September 2016.

Overall energy consumers are reporting mixed results.

As in the first survey consumers are telling us that overall they are satisfied with their electricity and gas services, with the highest levels of satisfaction in the states such as New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria where the market has been opened up to competition and retail prices have been deregulated for some time.

However, households and small businesses across Australia are again telling us that the value for money of their electricity services ranks behind gas and all other utility services, including banking, mobile phones and internet services.

While some consumers are taking advantage of competition to get better value for money, the majority are not shopping around and switching to get a better deal.

A key result in this survey was that the consumers who are switching – who are actively engaging in the market – are not reporting higher levels of satisfaction with value for money than those who are not. This points to the need to place the retail market – where there are questions about value for money, the nature of the services being offered and where innovation is going to come from – at the centre of thinking about the transformation of the energy system.

State based findings documents can be seen below.

Energy Consumer Sentiment Survey Findings (National)

Energy Consumer Sentiment Survey Findings (SA)

Energy Consumer Sentiment Survey Findings (WA)

Energy Consumer Sentiment Survey Findings (NSW)

Energy Consumer Sentiment Survey Findings (QLD)

Energy Consumer Sentiment Survey Findings (TAS)

Energy Consumer Sentiment Survey Findings (VIC)

Energy Consumer Sentiment Survey Findings (ACT)