Ask any government energy agency, regulator or consumer advocacy body (ĚÇĐÄVlog included) how to save on gas or electricity and they will tell you to shop around.

For those who do, Melbourne-based retailer GloBird might present an enticing option.

With rates that market watchers say can be lower than average and a promise to let you “enjoy low cost energy for as long or as little as you like,” this small provider has drawn the eye of consumers looking for a better deal.

Yet it’s this very cohort of savvy bill-watchers that GloBird is reluctant to take on as customers.

The retailer is denying service to people who use Bill Hero – a service that helps consumers compare energy providers by analysing their bills, showing them where they could be saving more and helping them switch.

GloBird says people who use services like Bill Hero might switch away too soon after joining and undermine its business model, making it difficult for the company to operate.

In taking this stance, GloBird is operating within the law, but leaving unhappy consumers in its wake.

“I thought it was anti-competitive,” says Andy King, who missed out on saving around $300 a year on gas after GloBird told him it didn’t offer plans to Bill Hero users.

“They’re obviously running a business and can pick and choose who they take on… [but] there’s just something not quite right here in terms of GloBird blanket-banning people who are actively trying to manage energy prices, especially these days,” he adds.

Andy is one of several people we’ve heard from who were told directly by GloBird that they wouldn’t be served because they were Bill Hero users. Others were given different, more vague reasons, but believe their association with Bill Hero was the deciding factor.

Most Bill Hero users were identified through their use of an email server associated with the service.

But others say GloBird rejected them due solely to their street address, suggesting the retailer kept a record of these details as another way to identify Bill Hero users.

Who are GloBird and Bill Hero?

GloBird 

GloBird is an energy company that sells electricity and gas plans to households in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT.

It’s considered a smaller “Tier 2” retailer by the Australian Energy Regulator and like many retailers its size, doesn’t generate its own electricity or gas.

Rather, it enters into deals with generating companies to secure these resources for its customers.

Having operated under this arrangement for several years, it’s been recognised by some consumers and energy market watchers for offering comparatively low prices.

Bill Hero

Bill Hero, meanwhile, is a paid energy bill comparison and switching service.

Subscribers can upload their electricity and/or gas bill and Bill Hero will compare it to all other available plans to see if they could be paying less for their current use.

A unique part of the service is it provides subscribers with a dedicated email address made up of their name and the @billhero domain.

By registering this as their primary email with their energy retailer and getting all subsequent bills sent to it, users can get an ongoing analysis from Bill Hero of each bill and an indication of whether they could save by switching to a different provider or plan.

For an extra fee, subscribers can then get Bill Hero to take care of the process of switching them to a cheaper retailer.

Note: ĚÇĐÄVlog has a partnership with Bill Hero and may make money if you sign up to it via our website. All funds go straight back into our nonprofit mission. However, we don’t specifically endorse or recommend this energy comparison service.

Bill Hero calls blocking a “badge of honour”

“Smaller retailers [like GloBird] generally are the most price-competitive,” says Bill Hero CEO Richard Foxworthy. 

“They’ll put genuinely competitive prices into the market [and] through platforms like our own, those plans will rise to the top of the comparisons fairly frequently.”

Foxworthy says this has consistently drawn Bill Hero users to GloBird’s offers, but many are blocked when they try to sign up to the retailer.

ĚÇĐÄVlog has heard from Bill Hero users in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland who have been denied access to the company’s plans.

Most were pulled up by the retailer when they provided their Bill Hero email address during the sign-up process.

Some users who tried to do this over the phone recall being told directly that GloBird did not offer plans to Bill Hero users.

“We see this problem as a bit of a badge of honour,” notes Foxworthy, who says GloBird has been attempting these blocks for the past few years.

“We think that we must be doing things well, if at least one of the retailers is seeking to prevent it.”

GloBird stands by rejecting customers

GloBird gives multiple reasons for why it’s refused to serve customers who use Bill Hero.

The most commonly-cited relates to the company’s model as an entity that doesn’t own its own generation assets and has to buy energy from other parties.

GloBird executive manager John McCluskey tells ĚÇĐÄVlog via email that most customers prefer price stability and paying a set rate for their energy for a period of time, rather than prices that go up and down with the cost of electricity or gas in the wholesale market.

In order to provide this, he says, GloBird has to purchase “hedging products” such as swaps, contracts, options and futures in wholesale energy markets, which allow it to “lock in” the cost of supplying energy to customers in advance.

McCluskey argues that if lots of GloBird’s customers used a comparison service and switched away en masse, the retailer would have less income with which to manage these supply costs – something he says would pose a “risk” to the business.

The company explains this on its website, saying customers who switch in and out frequently cause issues for its operating model, but on the very same page says customers can stay “for as long or little as they like”.

McCluskey says retailers like GloBird who hedge would have to raise their prices if too many of their customers were encouraged to switch away.

GloBird also says services such as Bill Hero prevent it from being able to “obtain Explicit Informed Consent (EIC)” from its customers and ensure that they are “verifiable’’.

Bill Hero says its arrangements don’t undermine these requirements and says it takes steps to get customers to provide information to meet EIC requirements where needed.

It says GloBird is the only energy retailer denying service to its users or claiming its systems undermine a relationship with customers.

GloBird denies having a strict policy of denying all Bill Hero users and says it takes the same approach with all comparison services.

It says it’s “prioritising” new customers with whom it can “establish a stable, ongoing relationship”.

Savvy shoppers switch more than most

Some of the Bill Hero subscribers ĚÇĐÄVlog spoke to said they switched gas or electricity retailers on average once a year while using the service.

This is more than average – only approximately 20% of consumers switch electricity retailers this often, according to a 2025 ACCC report examining the retail market in Australia’s most populous states.

Bill Hero CEO Richard Foxworthy acknowledges customers who closely watch and act on prices can be a headache for some retailers.

“I do have some sympathy for energy retailers. It is a competitive market. They’re under very significant regulatory restraints. It’s not an easy business to be in, but it’s the business they’ve chosen to be in,” he says.

“Any retailer who is genuinely committed to sustain competitive pricing should welcome the kind of scrutiny that Bill Hero brings.”

Is blocking customers legal?

GloBird is allowed to pick and choose who it takes as customers. But ĚÇĐÄVlog senior campaigns and policy advisor Jordan Cornelius notes that the company is restricting Australians who are acting on advice from government and energy regulators.

“Consumers shouldn’t be penalised for following the prevailing advice that tells them that in order to avoid paying too much for energy, they should shop around and switch plans regularly,” she says.

In parts of the country where consumers have a choice of energy retailer, only a select few larger providers are actually obliged to take you on when you’re shopping around.

These ‘designated’ retailers tend to be larger companies: GloBird is not a designated retailer in any of the jurisdictions where we’ve heard of it knocking back potential customers.

Note: In most areas, once you’re with a retailer and receiving energy from them, they become your ‘designated’ retailer and are required to continue servicing your premises. Designated retailers may also be referred to as ‘Local Area Retailers’ or ‘Retailers of Last Resort’.

Experts weigh in

Retail energy experts acknowledge GloBird’s actions as part of a need for businesses to balance customer numbers against money spent securing access to energy.

“It is not very nice, that’s just an opinion. But I also understand the logic of it… it’s difficult to be a small retailer these days,” says Guillaume Roger, an economics professor studying the electricity market at Monash University.

Professor Bruce Mountain, energy economist and director of the Victorian Energy Policy Centre at Victoria University, says smaller retailers like GloBird are often having to manage the risk of exposure to the wholesale energy market.

“[They] continually look at the profile of their customers’ demand and build or buy a series of contracts which allow them to supply those customers at the lowest cost that they think they can,” he explains.

Mountain says retailers like GloBird offer cut-rate energy plans that look good in the beginning, but are designed to turn a profit in the long run.

“They offer loss leading deals to attract customers. And their business proposition is we’ll lose on selling to you for the first period. But once you’ve linked your bank accounts to us and it’s sticky, then we’re going to make money off you,” he says.

Concerns over GloBird’s information gathering

But consumers have also voiced concerns about the information GloBird appears to have collected in order to identify them as Bill Hero users.

While most were spotted for using a Bill Hero-branded email address, others say they were denied after only providing credentials with no clear link to the comparison service.

Andy King says GloBird may have identified him as a Bill Hero user based on his residential address alone.

“I didn’t use a Bill Hero [email] address [but they] discovered I was a Bill Hero customer through my residential address,” he recalls.

Andy says he was identified by a GloBird representative he spoke to over the phone, who asked for his street address as part of the sign-up process.

After checking this, the staff member said Andy wouldn’t be able to join one of the company’s plans because he appeared to be a Bill Hero customer.

Former Bill Hero subscriber James (last name withheld upon request) became suspicious when he was also blocked after only providing his street address.

It had been his second attempt to join the company – he was first rejected after reaching a stage where he had provided his Bill Hero address as an email contact.

Unhappy with GloBird dismissing the rejections as an “error” and advising he try another retailer, he requested any personal data the company was holding on him, specifically any criteria being used to reject his application.

After putting this in writing, GloBird backtracked and let him join, blaming IT issues for the initial denial.

Both James and Andy had previously been GloBird customers at the same time as being Bill Hero subscribers.

We asked GloBird if they retain the information of customers who are Bill Hero users, such as non-Bill Hero email addresses and street addresses, in order to identify them in the future.

The company said it wouldn’t provide any information on the “specific configuration” of its systems due to them being “commercially sensitive and constantly evolving”.

Bill Hero users still getting through

James isn’t the only Bill Hero user who was able to get onto GloBird’s books after questioning why his application was being rejected.

We spoke to one current GloBird customer who was allowed to sign-up with the company over the phone while remaining a Bill Hero subscriber after he disputed the company’s reasons for denying him service.

A customer service representative said they would “make an exception” for him if he gave a non-Bill Hero address as his email contact.

The customer, who we have decided not to name, says he’s forwarding the bills GloBird sends to this address onto Bill Hero in order to keep receiving the service’s comparisons and analysis.

Things to consider when shopping around for energy

If you live in a region where you’ve got a choice of energy retailer, shopping around and switching to a cheaper plan is still considered a good way to save on bills.

However, as highlighted above, complexities in the energy market can make this easier said than done. Here are a few tips and things to consider when shopping the energy market:

Retailers have limited obligations to new customers

If you live somewhere where you can choose between many different energy retailers, it’s worth knowing most won’t be obliged to take you on as a new customer and are allowed to deny requests for service.

‘Designated’ retailers do have to let you join, but there aren’t many of these and they may not offer the best plans. You can see a list .

Pay attention to “better off” messages

Energy retailers in most parts of the country have to include a “better off” notice on your bill that tells you if you could save money on another of your provider’s plans.

ĚÇĐÄVlog last year revealed some retailers were rolling out multiple plans with the same name but different prices, making for confusing “better off” messages.

Following our investigation, companies in several states and territories now have to alert customers receiving same-name better-off messages that there may in fact be a cheaper version of the plan they’re on (with the same name) that they can switch to.

Look out for this messaging to cut through the confusion and save.

The post Why this energy retailer is rejecting price-savvy customers appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.

If you’re prepared to switch, you have two main options:

• 1. Use a service to find the best deal and switch plans for you
• 2. Switch electricity or gas providers yourself

1. Use a service to find the best deal and switch plans for you

Using a switching service is an option for you if you’re in: New South Wales, South East Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania or Victoria. 

Find a better energy deal with Bill Hero

ĚÇĐÄVlog has partnered with energy switching service to help you save on electricity and gas and find the right plan for you. 

Bill Hero meets ĚÇĐÄVlog’s standards for a consumer-friendly service: it doesn’t take commissions from energy companies and it compares every publicly available deal.

How Bill Hero works

• Choose between
  • $49 electricity or gas annual subscription
  • $79 electricity and gas combined annual subscription
• Upload your bill and compare your plan vs all of the available plans on the whole market
• Let them automatically compare every bill moving forward, and let you know when you can save
• Choose their ‘Do It For Me’ (DIFM) switching service and allow them to do all the switching admin (+$25 switching fee)
• There’s a $50 savings guarantee for either electricity or gas, or $80 for both combined.
• They offer $350 average savings for new subscribers.

2. Switch electricity or gas providers yourself

If you don’t want to pay someone to complete your switch, there are state and federal government resources that help you do it for yourself. Your choice comes down to the state or territory you live in.

ACT

NSW

NT

SA

SEQ

TAS

VIC

WA

Australian Capital Territory

You have one option in the ACT: the federal government’s  service. It lets you:

• compare all the available energy prices and plans in your area 
• refine by contract term or payment option
• upload your most recent bill for more personalised results.

You need to complete the switch yourself.

New South Wales

You have one option in NSW. The federal government’s  service lets you:

• compare all the available energy prices and plans in your area 
• refine by contract term or payment option
• upload your most recent bill for more personalised results. 

You need to complete the switch yourself. 

Northern Territory

Your choice of electricity provider is restricted: most NT customers are supplied by government-owned Jacana Ltd.

South Australia

You have one option in SA: the federal government’s  service. It lets you:

• compare all the available energy prices and plans in your area 
• refine by contract term or payment option
• upload your most recent bill for more personalised results. 

You need to complete the switch yourself.

South East Queensland

You have one option in South East Queensland: the federal government’s  service. It lets you:

• compare all the available energy prices and plans in your area 
• refine by contract term or payment option
• upload your most recent bill for more personalised results. 

The rest of Queensland doesn’t have a broad selection of energy retailers, but you can still choose between a couple.

You need to complete the switch yourself. 

Tasmania 

You have one option in Tasmania: the federal government’s  service. It lets you:

• compare all the available energy prices and plans in your area 
• refine by contract term or payment option
• upload your most recent bill for more personalised results.

You need to complete the switch yourself.

Victoria

You have one option in Victoria: the state government’s  service. It lets you:

• compare all the available energy prices and plans in your area 
• refine by contract term or payment option, or features like Green Power
• upload your most recent bill for more personalised results. 

You need to complete the switch yourself.

Western Australia

Your choice of electricity provider is restricted: most Western Australian customers are supplied by Synergy.

The post Save on your energy bill appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.

It’s pretty straightforward really. Under Victoria’s Payment Difficulty Framework, energy retailers have a statutory duty to provide payment plans to customers having trouble paying their bills on time.

In states and territories under the jurisdiction of the Australian Energy Regulator (ACT, NSW, Qld, SA and Tas), energy retailers are also legally required to allow customers in financial difficulty to stretch out their payments.

Some retailers honour these hardship support obligations, while others have a record of ignoring them.

It’s a serious matter. At the moment, an estimated 460,000 households across Australia are at risk of falling into energy debt.

Engie Energy’s poor track record

In the 2025 Rank the Energy Retailer report produced by Financial Counselling Victoria (FCVic) and Financial Counselling Australia (FCA), Engie Energy was ranked dead last among 18 energy retailers by financial counsellors for its handling of hardship cases.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that, as of June 2024, Engie had the fourth-highest percentage of electricity customers disconnected (0.34%) among retailers regulated by the AER. 

Or that the retailer had the highest number of complaints to the Victorian energy ombudsman between April 2024 and March 2025.

ESC’s special Engie task force

Now Victoria’s Essential Services Commission (ESC), which regulates the energy sector in the state, has launched a court case against Engie for running roughshod over the hardship requirements outlined in the Victorian Energy Rules.

The ESC has charged Engie with failing to assist customers experiencing financial difficulties, failing to provide family violence protections, failing to follow rules designed to prevent bill shock, and collecting debts from customers who were receiving financial difficulty assistance. The common thread is that customers in these situations who reached out to Engie for help between January and November 2024 got none.

Leading up to the legal action, the ESC had set up a task force to investigate Engie, after the ombudsman tipped the regulator off about the string of complaints. The task force is still operating and is ready to take further enforcement measures if warranted, the ESC says.

 Chairperson and commissioner, Gerard Brody, says Engie doesn’t seem to have learned from previous mistakes.

“This is the third enforcement action the commission has taken against Engie in the past 18 months. We fined them $1.7 million in September 2024, $1.2 million last November, and we believe these latest allegations warrant the court’s attention,” Brody says.

“Energy retailers in Victoria have a responsibility to assist customers struggling to pay their bills. These customers are often doing everything they can to keep their head above water, so when support fails them the effects can be outsized and ongoing.”

Engie has 180,000 residential electricity and 155,000 residential gas customers in Victoria.

The ESC is seeking financial penalties as well as a range of other court orders.

The post Victorian regulator takes Engie Energy to court for hardship violations appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.

One case in point is that you can have your power cut off in Australia for not being able to pay a bill as low as $300. The threshold will move up to $500 in July this year, but whether that will significantly reduce the rate of disconnections is questionable.

Losing electricity in your home does physical, mental and social damage. Whatever financial strains led to this point will now only get worse, since you can’t do much of anything without power.

There were around 23,000 energy disconnections in Australia last year. According to research by the advocacy group Energy Consumers Australia (ECA), at least twenty times that number are currently at risk of being disconnected.

In states and territories under the jurisdiction of the Australian Energy Regulator (ACT, NSW, Qld, SA and Tas), energy retailers are required to assist customers facing a money crisis through hardship programs that stretch out payback timeframes. Victoria’s Payment Difficulty Framework works much the same way.

But as we reported in September last year, many retailers shirk these obligations. And for every energy customer in a hardship program, it’s been estimated that at least two more are in debt but haven’t asked for help from their retailers.

Cutting off power when people can’t pay is not allowed in some countries

A recent project funded by ECA and conducted by researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) explores the fact that cutting off people’s power when they can’t pay is not the way it works in several other comparable countries, namely Spain, France and Ireland.

The in the journal Energy Research and Social Science and argues that turning off the lights on households is a long way from the only option retailers and policymakers have.

“Ending harmful disconnections is a policy choice, not an inevitability of how energy markets operate,” says lead RMIT researcher associate professor Nicola Willand.

“If governments and regulators are prepared to act, they can design systems that keep households connected while still allowing energy businesses to remain viable.”

For starters, they could look to more enlightened approaches overseas.

It’s generally illegal to cut off customers who can’t pay their bills in Spain, where the electricity costs of the most financially vulnerable people are shared between retailers and local governments. Vulnerable households can also apply for discounts on their energy bills of up to 65%.

In France and Ireland, households can’t be disconnected during winter. In France and Spain, the energy supply of customers who can’t afford their bills is reduced rather than cut off, allowing them to keep basic household services running.

Some retailers in France and Spain have voluntarily chosen to never cut off a customer’s power.

Co-author of the report, Orla Dingley from University College Dublin, says Ireland’s Energy Engage Code shows how disconnection policy can focus on support rather than punishment.

“The commitment to keep engaged customers connected provides a model other countries could adopt,” Dingley says.

RMIT’s Nicola Willand agrees, saying “these examples offer valuable lessons for any country grappling with energy affordability and consumer vulnerability”.

‘Fallen on deaf ears’

The takeaway message from the report is that disconnections can be banned in Australia without threatening the viability of the energy market.

“Calls for an end to disconnections have previously fallen on deaf ears, with the assumption being that there was no workable alternative. But this research proposes initiatives that may help secure equitable access to essential energy,” Willand says. 

ECA executive manager of advocacy and policy Carol Valente says the research “underlines how we must explore alternatives to disconnections, especially for consumers in vulnerable circumstances”, adding that ECA is conducting further research into how retailers, governments and policymakers can better support households that face payment difficulties.

The report makes a few key recommendations to Australian energy retailers and policymakers:

• The introduction of legally binding disconnection bans based on medical electricity needs and financial or social vulnerability.
• A moratorium on winter and summer disconnections.
• Reducing the power supply rather than completely disconnecting a property.

Unlawful disconnections are not rare

The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has taken action against a number of retailers for illegally cutting off power to homes. But the fines have been tiny in comparison to the size and revenue of these corporations.

In 2019, for instance, Origin Energy paid an $80,000 fine for improperly disconnecting 54 homes. In 2020, AGL paid a $100,000 fine for disconnecting customers who were having trouble paying.

Energy Australia and AGL have also paid AER fines ($1.5 million and $100,000, respectively) for cutting off customers who couldn’t afford their bills.

At the time, the AER was limited to a maximum fine of $100,000 for breaches of the National Energy Retail Law. In February 2021, the limit was raised to $10 million.  (The earlier $1.5 million AGL fine was a court-ordered penalty based on multiple breaches.)

The AER has recently conducted several reviews of payment difficulty protections and disconnection policy and made a number of rule change requests to the Australian Energy Market Commission (the energy market’s rule maker) to improve protections for financially vulnerable customers.

In March 2025, energy ministers around Australia signed on to something called the Better Energy Customer Experiences program, which aims to continually review and update consumer protections so they remain fit for purpose as the energy market changes. The AER contributes advice to this reform program.

Exploring alternatives

AER chair Clare Savage tells ĚÇĐÄVlog that the regulator “has long been focused on the issue of energy disconnections in both our policy work and in our compliance and enforcement activities”, adding that the AER was the first regulator in the world to issue a “statement of expectations” to energy market participants during the COVID-19 pandemic. (The expectation was that retailers wouldn’t disconnect customers during mandated lockdowns.)

“The research is clear. Early identification of customers experiencing payment difficulty and support for them are vital to getting customers back on track and paying their bills,” Savage says. “It’s important we focus on what else can be done before it even gets to a situation where disconnection is considered.”

Savage says the effort to explore alternatives to disconnection is ongoing through initiatives such as the federal government’s Better Energy Customer Experiences program, which picked up several measures that were recommended in the AER’s Payment Difficulty Framework review.

In November 2023, the AER presented a package of proposals called the “game changer reforms” to energy ministers which called for a number of new protections for customers who can’t afford their energy bills.

“We welcome research that contributes to the discussion about how to better support customers experiencing payment difficulty,” Savage says.

Current protections against disconnection in Australia

There are a number of scenarios in which it’s illegal for an energy retailer in Australia to disconnect a customer who’s overdue on a bill.

• The debt is less than $300 ($500 from 1 July 2026) and the customer has agreed to pay this amount within a set timeframe. 
• Life-support equipment is in use at the property.
• The customer is affected by family violence. 
• The customer had lodged a complaint with an energy ombudsman about a potential disconnection.
• The customer is awaiting a decision on an application for a rebate, concession or relief under any government-funded scheme. 
• Consumers are protected from disconnection during certain timeframes, including afternoons, evenings, Fridays, weekends, public holidays, and between 20 and 31 December.

The post Should people who can’t pay their bills have their power cut off? appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.

When that market deals in an essential service, the impacts are felt by nearly everyone.

Consider the current business model of Australia’s retail energy market. It lures customers in with cheap energy offers, then steadily pushes prices up and up.

We’ve long referred to this tactic in the insurance industry as the notorious loyalty penalty, where customers are penalised rather than rewarded for staying with the same provider. The only way to find a better deal is to continuously shop around and be prepared to switch providers.

But energy retailers are making this near impossible by bombarding us with thousands of different energy plans to choose from.

There were a staggering 145,500 different energy plans available in 2025 across the National Energy Market (Queensland, NSW, the ACT, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania). If you wanted to switch to a new plan similar to the one you were on, you could have been offered up to 233 options.

The confusion is compounded when plans with the same name are offered at different prices. Even if you find a better offer, the prices will probably go up in a matter of months. Then your retailer will likely roll out a cheaper offer – perhaps with the same name as the plan you’re on – to lure in a new batch of customers.

The result of all this flimflammery speaks for itself: 73% of energy customers were not on the best offer available from their retailer in 2024–25.

ĚÇĐÄVlog has campaigned and reported extensively on the above-mentioned issues, and last year we filed a special ‘designated complaint’ to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission about a range of deceptive pricing tactics employed by energy retailers.

Our tribute to a dysfunctional market

To bring these sorry issues to light, we’re launching our own mock energy company –– Shocking Energy. 

Our fittingly named fictional retailer specialises in the sneaky tactic we’ve come to expect from the industry – plans with the same name, but different prices, that lead customers  to believe they’re on the cheapest available plan, while their prices are continually going up.

ĚÇĐÄVlog can’t actually sell you energy, but we can mock the  energy retailers making a mockery of energy pricing and plans.

“Shocking Energy’s mission is simple – to harness the power of confusion to keep energy costs rising. The mock retailer is a big fan of creating meaningless plan names, reused multiple times at different prices, making it nearly impossible for consumers to work out which deal is actually best,” says ĚÇĐÄVlog senior campaigns and policy advisor, Jordan Cornelius.

A 2025 ĚÇĐÄVlog survey of almost 400 energy bills found 64 examples of energy retailers telling customers to switch to a plan with the same name. Those customers could have saved an average of $171 annually if they had switched to the cheaper same-named plan, but why switch to a plan you think you’re already on?

Widespread confusion seems to have been the plan retailers had in mind.

The less you switch, the more you pay

According to the latest ACCC Electricity Market Inquiry, households that have been on the same electricity plan for more than three years are paying on average $221 more each year than customers on newer plans. In NSW, an average household that is not on their retailer’s best plan could save around $300 per year simply by switching to the cheapest available option.

“ĚÇĐÄVlog research found many consumers are switching plans or retailers far less often than every year,” says Cornelius.

“People in the lowest income group were the least likely to believe cheaper rates may be available monthly, quarterly, or twice a year. Only 5% of people think switching plans or providers every few months could help them get the best deal.”

Customers having to constantly switch to avoid getting ripped off is an indication that the market is not working properly. Unlike real energy retailers, Shocking Energy makes it clear you’re being had, but we also give you practical tips on how to avoid the trickery and find the cheapest and most suitable energy plan.

“What makes Shocking Energy different? Honesty. Shocking Energy openly admits its tactics are confusing, hopefully tricking customers into paying more on their energy bills,” says Cornelius.

By laying these tricks bare for all to see, our hope is that consumers will be less likely to fall for them.

The post Shocking Energy: A timely parody to help explain your energy bill appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.

As an electricity or gas customer you have two options: you can pay the same rate at all times, or you can pay different peak and off-peak rates based on the time of day.

The latter is known as dynamic pricing. The idea behind choosing this type of energy plan – which is based on time-of-use or demand pricing – is that you can save money by avoiding peak usage times and benefit from cheaper rates during off-peak hours.

Dynamic pricing is simple in theory, but the plans themselves are highly complex and many customers can struggle to juggle the many variables in a cost-effective way.

But flat rate plans can also have confusing information about fees and charges – and about crucial features such as hardship support or changes in benefits – and comparing one to another is far from easy.

Across the National Energy Market (Queensland, NSW, the ACT, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania) there were a staggering 145,500 different energy plans available in 2025. If you wanted to switch to a new plan similar to the one you were on – whether it was a dynamic or flat rate plan – you could have been offered up to 233 options.

One reason for the colossal number of plans is that energy retailers are constantly trotting out new ones with cheaper rates to lure in new customers, while leaving existing customers on older plans where prices continually go up. It’s been well established that customer loyalty is repaid with increasingly worse deals.

Dynamic pricing not really working

Dynamic pricing is an approach to energy consumption that requires careful control of your energy usage.

With time-of-use tariffs, your rates are cheaper at off-peak times. With demand tariffs, rates are based on the highest amount of electricity used for one 30-minute block over the monthly billing cycle. This level of usage then determines how much customers pay in the demand period set by the retailer for the entire billing cycle. The different ins and outs from plan to plan can defy comprehension.

In both cases, you would need to stop using appliances that draw a lot of energy when everyone else is using them, which is generally in the late afternoon or evening.

That may not be such a big deal when it comes to dishwashers and washing machines, but these household mainstays generally only account for around 10% of household energy use, according to the advocacy group Energy Consumers Australia (ECA). It’s heating and cooling appliances that really eat up the kilowatts.

Variable pricing leading to bigger bills

Recent research from ECA reveals that it’s not realistic for many customers to avoid heating or cooling when it’s needed most during peak hours.

The households that manage to do this as a budgeting strategy are generally struggling to make ends meet. Among other things, they don’t have the solar devices that wealthier households have, which can potentially justify going with a dynamic pricing plan as long as you can understand it.

A report released by the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) late last year found that demand tariff plans were the most expensive types of plan in the state in 2024–25 for customers without solar, costing them $100 to $300 more a year than flat rate or time-of-use plans.

For households with solar, demand tariff bills were still $150 to $200 higher than the other options. Demand tariff plans are so complicated that even the federal government’s Energy Made Easy comparison site can’t figure the total annual costs.

A report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), also released late last year, found that 420,000 energy customers were on complex energy plans in 2025, a 40% increase over the previous year. The report aptly describes their complexity.

“Complex plans use a combination of multiple cost reflective pricing elements, including time of use, seasonal pricing, multiple usage blocks and demand charges. For example, a complex plan could involve time of use pricing with a demand charge. These plans include a complex set of pricing signals for customers to respond to if they wish to reduce their electricity bill.”

Six out of 10 don’t understand their bills

In a recent submission to the Australian Energy Regulator’s (AER) review of energy retailer guidelines, ECA called for standardising information across all energy plans so it’s clear what you’re paying for and so there’s a way to compare one energy offer to another that makes sense to the average customer.

ECA says 60% of the 4000 homeowners it recently surveyed aren’t sure how their energy costs are calculated, and 82% said they hadn’t switched energy providers over the previous 12 months.

Switching rates have been low for a long time. The ACCC recently renewed its ongoing call to energy customers to take charge of their energy costs and regularly switch plans or providers. It reported in December that customers who’ve been on the same electricity plan for three years are paying around $221 a year more than customers who are on newer plans.

Another ACCC statistic suggests a market in disarray. Nearly 2.5 million customers are paying prices at or above the default offer – the regulated safety net price for people who don’t engage with the market – and more than 400,000 of these customers are paying more than 10% over the default offer.

It means that many market offers – which are meant to be cheaper – are more expensive than default offers.

In line with this topsy turvy state of the market, 73% of energy customers were not on the best offer available from their retailer in 2024–25.

“Loyalty penalties are alive and well in the retail electricity market,” says ACCC Commissioner Anna Brakey. “So the very best thing people can do to save money is to switch plans – either moving to a cheaper plan offered by their existing retailer or changing retailers.”

Keep it simple please

The ECA survey reveals a truth that may not come as a surprise: most of us (58%) just want a fair price and good customer service from our energy retailer, not a daily barrage of different plans that may or may not save us money.

The 42% who are willing to engage in this complicated market and deal with complex energy plans could be described as people who are riding the wave of the transition from fossil fuels to renewables. They’re likely to have the latest solar technology and monitoring tools.

But in both cases, as ECA points out, customers don’t want to be confronted with energy plans they don’t understand.

ECA manager of consumer advocacy Claire Ohk tells ĚÇĐÄVlog that complex energy plans are a big problem for consumers.

“Complex pricing means prices can change depending on the time of the day, the time of the week, the day of the week, the season and how you use energy across these different timeframes. People enter these plans without really understanding them,” says Ohk.

Different plans with the same name are a case in point (and were the subject of a designated complaint from ĚÇĐÄVlog to the ACCC last year).

“For many households the name of the plan is the most recognizable form of their contract,” Ohk says. “If retailers reuse that plan name but they change the prices or terms, that results in a lot of confusion and disengagement. It really undermines trust for consumers.”

Push for better outcomes for consumers

Ohk says a central argument Energy Consumers Australia is making to the regulator is that guidelines for how retailers communicate with customers should have an outcomes-based objective, and the outcome should be making it a lot easier for customers to understand their plan, compare plans and find cheaper ones.

“It’s not just the standard information that they need to put into the bill or the letters that they send to consumers. It’s about putting that outcomes obligation on retailers to make sure that they’re thinking proactively about whether this complex plan that they’ve offered would actually work for this particular consumer or not.”

In short, energy customers shouldn’t have to work so hard to understand the plan they’re on or constantly switch plans in order to get a better deal. And guidelines only go so far.

“Guideline improvements are important, but I don’t think they’re a substitute for structural reform. The system still relies way too heavily on consumers to monitor and switch constantly, and that’s just not appropriate for an essential service,” Ohk says.

“In a healthy market, consumers should be able to expect to get fair outcomes by default. It really shows that a consumer duty is needed to make sure energy retailers are thinking proactively about providing the best outcome for consumers.”

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Energy smart meters are supposed to give us the information we need to better understand and control our power usage. The theory is that this will help us find ways to reduce our ever-increasing bills. Smart meters are also critical when it comes to monitoring the performance of solar devices.

But unless you can access real-time smart meter data – information that tells you how much energy you’re using at a given time – fine-tuning your energy consumption from day to day will involve a lot of guesswork.

At the moment, energy customers have access to daily usage data, but they have to request real-time, second-by-second data from their retailers, and they’re under no obligation to provide it. And if they do give it to you, they can charge you for it.

But change is in the wind. As of 30 November 2028, a new breed of smart meters will start being installed across Australia as part of the mandatory rollout, which is being implemented under the authority of the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) and applies across the National Energy Market (Queensland, NSW, the ACT, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania). 

These new meters will have the capacity to wirelessly communicate real-time data, and customers can ask their retailer to provide access to this data for free.

It’s an important step forward in a rapidly evolving energy market, but there’s a major caveat: if your household already has an older-style smart meter installed, you won’t get a new one.

That means approximately 85% of households are expected to be stuck with older smart meters by the projected end of the rollout in 2030 and won’t benefit from this reform at all. If they want to upgrade their meter to one with real-time data capabilities, they’ll have to pay for it.

If they want to upgrade their meter to one with real-time data capabilities, they’ll have to pay for it. (Under the mandatory rollout, energy retailers are initially installing smart meters at no cost to customers.)

So it seems the best move would be to wait until late 2028 to have a smart meter installed, except that’s not really an option. The timing of your smart meter installation is generally controlled by your energy retailer. In Victoria and Tasmania, the rollout is finished or close to it.

‘Customers want information’

Nevertheless, the advocacy group Energy Consumers Australia (ECA), which called for speeding up access to real-time data, welcomes the ruling – especially given that the AEMC’s original implementation date was a lot farther off. ECA argued that it be moved forward in a submission to the AEMC.

“The initial direction would have meant retailers could charge consumers for access to real-time data until 2040,” says ECA general manager of policy and advocacy, Brian Spak.

“Our research has found that consumers want information that could be provided via access to real-time data, which can help them better understand their energy use and identify easy ways to save on their bills,” Spak says.

Providing consumers access to their real-time data will help also build trust in the smart meter rollout, Spak adds.

But for customers who received the older style of smart meter, having to pay to upgrade to a real-time data meter leaves them at the mercy of energy retailers, who will have no incentive to make sure the metering companies they hire offer the best value for money, since the cost will be passed on to customers.

ECA has called on the AEMC to set a regulated price for the many customers who may want to upgrade, rather than having retailers set prices. But this wasn’t included in the final AEMC ruling. Instead, retailers have been instructed to charge ‘reasonable’ prices.

The AEMC is relying on market competition to keep prices reasonable, but it’s the energy retailer, not the customer, that’s comparing smart meter providers, as the ECA pointed out in its submission.

Retailers “have no market incentive to gain the best value from metering service providers as they are not the customer, and simply pass on these costs to them,” ECA wrote.

Pace will be set by industry

AEMC chair Anna Collyer tells ĚÇĐÄVlog that making real-time smart meter data available to households sooner would have placed a heavy financial burden on households, since retailers’ costs are passed along to customers.

“By 2045, most consumers will have free access as their smart meters are replaced through natural replacement cycles. The pace depends on metering coordinator decisions about which meters to install – the sooner industry adopts real-time capable meters, the faster customers gain access,” Collyer says.

The AEMC stressed the point that waiting until the later stages of the rollout to introduce real-time data smart meters will significantly reduce the cost of adding this technology
to energy customers.

Households that don’t get a new real-time data meter from November 2028 can pay to upgrade early or use alternative real-time data tracking devices, Collyer adds.

There is a number of commercially available devices that connect to energy meters or power cables that claim to track real-time usage data. The AEMC points out that these monitoring devices cost as little as $50.

A moratorium on extra charges after installation

Though smart meters are meant to help lower bills, the mandatory rollout has had the opposite effect for many customers. Some energy retailers have used it as an opportunity to add unexpected new charges, in particular demand charges.

These are based on the highest amount of electricity used for one 30-minute block over the monthly billing cycle. This level of usage then determines how much customers pay in the demand period set by the retailer for the entire billing cycle.

ĚÇĐÄVlog has heard from a number of energy customers who were taken by surprise by the jump in their bills following a smart meter installation and the application of demand charges.

The good news is that the era of retailers being able to add new charges officially came to an end as of December last year. Since then, energy retailers have been prohibited by an earlier AEMC ruling from adding charges without the customer’s consent for two years after a smart meter is installed. 

But households who’ve had a smart meter installed before December 2025 won’t have this protection, just as households with meters installed before 30 November 2028 won’t have free access to real-time data. In November 2024 – more than a year before the two-year moratorium on adding new charges took effect – the AEMC reported that around 7.3 million meters had already been installed, covering 57% of households.

Collyer says customers who had smart meters installed before December 2025 have the option of switching to a different offer from their retailer or to a different retailer altogether if they’re facing higher costs, adding that Queensland, South Australia and NSW offer flat rate plans for households with smart meters following an AEMC recommendation.

If households are hit with new charges following the installation of a smart meter after December 2025, Collyer recommends customers first contact their retailer, then, if necessary, the energy ombudsman in their state or territory.

Who regulates the metering companies?

In many jurisdictions there’s an unresolved question about who has oversight over metering companies. We recently heard from an energy customer named Brendan who was convinced his energy smart meter wasn’t working properly and that he was the victim of excessive demand charges.

“My meter reported that I used 4000 watts an hour continuously for two hours, which is absurd and impossible,” Brendan says. “I don’t run air con, I don’t have a pool heater or anything like that – 8000 watts over two hours is just insane.”

Brendan says his power usage is limited to a computer, a TV, a fridge and a modem. “Before this faulty meter was installed two years ago, my bills were around $250 per quarter. Now they’re between $350 and $500.”

When he contacted his energy retailer he was told there was nothing wrong with the meter. Yet energy retailers and metering companies are generally two separate entities that have no obligation to work together, so the retailer likely wouldn’t be in a position to know whether there was a problem.

Smart meters are handled by an array of different businesses in NSW, for instance. Metering coordinators have overall responsibility for providing metering services, and they generally hire other businesses to install and maintain the equipment at people’s homes. Different businesses keep track of the meter data.

The NSW Electricity and Water Ombudsman (EWON) has no jurisdiction over any of these players and they have no obligation to comply with requests for metering data. EWON has lodged several submissions to regulators, including the AEMC, calling for oversight of metering businesses, but that has yet to happen.

Metering companies also operate independently in Queensland. In Victoria, energy distributors are responsible for providing meters.

So while the relative few households that get access to free real-time smart meter data in 2028 will be in a better position to reduce energy costs and monitor solar devices, the national smart meter rollout as a whole – while critical to the evolution of Australia’s retail energy infrastructure – continues to bring with it some unwelcome surprises for many households. 

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At the moment, energy customers in Victoria can be disconnected for having an outstanding debt as low as $300. In October 2026, this will increase to $1000 thanks to a rule change initiated by the ESC last year.

The new legislation will also require energy retailers to move customers onto their cheapest plan if they’re on a hardship payment program or have carried more than $1000 in energy debt for over three months.

The ESC signalled in 2025 that it’s serious about keeping retailers in line. It handed out $24.5 million in fines last year, including $17.6 million to Origin Energy, the largest penalty for breaching Victoria’s energy rules in the state’s history.

Origin Energy being held to account

In the court proceedings brought by the ESC, Origin admitted to failing to provide adequate support to 6806 customers experiencing payment difficulty, along with over-charging customers, failing to provide mandatory ‘best offer’ messages, and not adequately recording customer information on the Life Support Register (which lists customers whose lives can depend on uninterrupted access to electricity).

The Justice in the Origin case said “if the court does not impose penalties of sufficient magnitude in light of the conduct that has been found to have occurred, there is a risk that other energy retailers who are currently complying with all relevant obligations may drop their present standards, particularly in circumstances where the cost of compliance is significant”.

Earlier in 2025, Origin paid a $1.6 million fine for allegedly disclosing the sensitive information of 16 family violence victims to perpetrators without their consent and for taking debt recovery action against 38 customers affected by family violence without properly considering their circumstances. 

Unauthorised price hikes, ignored complaints, incorrect info

In addition to Origin, the ESC slapped fines on six other energy retailers in 2025, including Engie Energy, which was ranked dead last for its handling of hardship cases in the 2025 Rank the Energy Retailer report, produced by Financial Counselling Victoria (FCVic) and Financial Counselling Australia (FCA).

Here’s the breakdown of the fines given out by the ESC last year:

• $924,600 to AGL for allegedly raising prices for 15,845 residential and small business customers.
• $1,206,050 to Engie for allegedly failing to respond to customer complaints about billing issues in a timely manner.
• $764,380 to Momentum Energy for allegedly failing to uphold critical protections for customers affected by family violence, including disclosing personal information to perpetrators.
• $1,066,986 to EnergyAustralia for allegedly giving customers incorrect information about its best energy deals.
• $961,550 to Pacific Blue for failing to credit the accounts of over 6000 customers.
• $341,724 to CovaU for illegal telemarketing.

‘Laws aren’t optional’

“Laws to protect people experiencing vulnerability aren’t optional,” says ESC chair and commissioner Gerard Brody. “They exist to keep people safe, and we will continue to hold retailers to account when they fall short of these critical obligations.”

“We’ve had a year of record-breaking fines in 2025, which should send a simple message – cutting corners on consumer protections is not just unacceptable, it’s costly. Retailers need to invest in getting things right the first time.”

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How energy efficient your home is can have a massive impact on your energy bills, which probably explains why over three-quarters of owner-occupied homes in Australia have some form of insulation.

For new homes, the energy efficiency requirements under Australia’s Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) went from six to seven stars (out of 10) in 2022, a move that is expected to save owners of new homes about $183 on their power bill every year. Energy ratings for existing homes remains a work in progress.

Achieving a seven-star rating entails a number of measures, including choosing a building site with both shade and solar access, double or triple glazing the windows, having a lot of internal doors so you can create sealed temperature zones, insulating extensively, and having lots of ceiling fans.

Rental properties generally have few or none of these features, which may explain why renters are far more likely to have trouble paying their energy bills. (Recent data from the Australian Energy Regulator revealed that 336,615 households were in energy debt last year.) 

Homes built before 2005 – when efficiency standards were introduced – are estimated to average around 1.8 stars. Many of these would be rental homes, of which only around 11% have rooftop solar.

Australia, in fact, has some of the least energy-efficient homes in the developed world. Upgrading a home to seven stars can decrease electricity costs by $1500 to $4000 a year, depending on its size and the state or territory it’s in, but landlords would need an incentive to do this other than an ethical imperative.

Most renters can’t afford to pay for comfort

New research from the advocacy group Energy Consumers Australia (ECA) reveals that 70% of renters avoid using heating or cooling because of their effect on energy bills, and 40% say that they can’t keep their homes at a comfortable temperature without facing big energy costs.

ECA is calling on state and territory governments to mandate minimum energy efficiency standards in rental properties in all states in territories. According to the organisation’s most recent research, around two-thirds of Australians agree with this position. 

ECA executive manager of advocacy and policy Dr Carol Valente tells ĚÇĐÄVlog that a four-star home in Sydney or Melbourne uses about one-third of the energy for heating and cooling as a one-star home, and a seven-star home uses about half of what a four-star home would use.

All that extra energy costs a lot of money. And with only 36% of rental homes having any form of insulation, you can see why renters tend to keep the air con off.

“The change in how much heating and cooling is needed because of the energy efficiency features of the building is extremely significant, and heating and cooling represents about 40% of an average household energy bill consumption,” Valente says.

Efficiency standards the exception

Valente applauds the steps that have been taken in some jurisdictions, but they are few and far between.

The ACT government requires ceiling insulation in rental homes, and in Victoria new minimum energy efficiency standards for rental homes will be phased in from March 2027, including insulation, drought-proofing, and efficiency ratings for hot water, heating and cooling systems.

“None of the other states and territories in Australia have any enforceable energy efficiency requirements for rental homes, and what’s more concerning is that some of those jurisdictions haven’t even started to think about them. There is very little political pressure on this,” Valente says.

In South Australia, the state government recently voted down a proposal to introduce such measures.

As it stands, more than two million rental homes in Australia are located in places without enforceable energy efficiency standards. One obvious reason for the resistance to upgrading is the cost to landlords.

Valente says the focus should be shifted to the hidden costs of not introducing standards.

“We know that when it comes to energy efficiency there are a lot of flow-on benefits in terms of physical and mental health and well-being and productivity that are often hard to quantify and measure but that are important to take into account,” Valente says.

Australia lagging behind comparable countries

ECA is calling on state and territory governments to apply the NatHERS ratings to rental homes, and make those ratings available to prospective renters.

It’s a system that’s already in place in other countries. In 2018, the UK introduced the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), which rates rental properties on a scale of A (best) to G (worst). This information is disclosed to renters.

Since 2020, landlords in the UK have been prohibited from renting properties with a rating below E. The EPC is also used in France, where G-rated homes were banned from the rental market starting in 2025.

“This creates accountability and gives landlords a clear market signal and a timeline to make the upgrades happen and It also makes it easier and simpler for renters and real estate agents and all the stakeholders involved to understand whether the property is compliant or not,” Valente says.

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When ĚÇĐÄVlog handed the entire energy retailer industry a Shonky earlier this month, one of the issues we called out was the practice of continually rolling out new cheaper energy plans with the same names as existing ones. 

We call this same-name messaging, and it results in customers remaining on energy plans they mistakenly believe to be the cheapest ones available from their retailer. The problem is that they’re on an earlier version of the plan in which prices have gone up.

The retailer would have been obligated to prompt them on their energy bill to switch to the newer version, but since it had the same name as their existing plan, customers understandingly assumed they were already on it. We thought the systemic use of this and other confusing pricing tactics was not only shonky-worthy, but possibly illegal. 

We also focused on this issue in our designated complaint to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) about energy retailers, filed in May.

The complaint included our analysis of energy bills sent in by ĚÇĐÄVlog supporters. Many of them had ‘best offer’ or ‘better offer’ messages for plans with the same names as the ones the customers were already on.

By not somehow figuring out that these were actually new plans and switching to them, the customers we reviewed missed out on an average of $171 in annual savings. In one case, the savings would have been as high as $588 a year.

We estimated the total annual cost to consumers of same-name messaging at around $65 million.

Around 360,000 Victorians unknowingly paying more 

Victoria’s Essential Services Commission (ESC), which regulates energy retailers in the state, took note of our ACCC complaint and did its own research.

According to the ESC, around 360,000 Victorians are on older, more expensive versions of plans that have a cheaper alternative with the same name. The average customer would save up to $430 per year if they switched.

In some cases, less than 25% of customers in Victoria are on the newest, cheapest version of a same-name energy plan. And of the ten most popular household energy plans in the state, six have cheaper earlier versions with the same name.

Similar to other jurisdictions, energy retailers in Victoria have to communicate their best offers to customers with every energy bill or price-change notification. But when the best offer has the same name as an existing one this regulation doesn’t really work. 

This is why the ESC is putting new regulations in place. As of October 2026, energy retailers in Victoria will be required to clearly distinguish between different plans on better-offer messages, meaning they’ll need to have different names or at least version numbers. 

It’s part of a suite of new energy rules coming into effect in Victoria, which will include the requirement (as of July 2026) that all customers on contracts older than four years be charged a reasonable price for their energy.

As of October 2026, retailers will also be required to automatically switch customers experiencing payment difficulty to their cheapest plan. 

Those who switch the least pay the most 

“Some customers have been missing out on hundreds of dollars of savings per year by not switching to a cheaper plan with the same name,” says ESC chairperson and commissioner Gerard Brody. “In the current climate, we know people are looking for ways to reduce costs.”

According to the ESC’s calculations, customers who have been on the same energy plan for 10 years or more could save up to $950 a year if they switched. Customers on the same plan for two years or more could save up to $410 a year by finding a cheaper plan.

The lesson is clear – customers who have been loyal to their energy retailers the longest pay the highest bills. And giving new, cheaper plans the same names as existing more expensive ones makes finding a better deal that much harder. 

According to the ESC’s calculations, customers who have been on the same energy plan for 10 years or more could save up to $950 a year if they switched. Customers on the same plan for two years or more could save up to $410 a year by finding a cheaper plan.

The lesson is clear – customers who have been loyal to their energy retailers the longest pay the highest bills. And giving new, cheaper plans the same names as existing more expensive ones makes finding a better deal that much harder. 

“Same-name plans can be a significant barrier to switching to a retailer’s cheapest plan,” Brody says.

“The recently announced changes should remove this barrier and help customers identify cheaper plans. We expect retailers to design systems and publish new offers that clearly identify different plans, making it easier for customers to switch.”

Consumers confusion and dodgy tactics

ĚÇĐÄVlog senior campaigns and policy adviser Jordan Cornelius, who authored our energy retailer complaint to the ACCC, says the move by the ESC is a positive first step toward a fairer energy market. 

“Our research found that many consumers are confused by same-name plans, so we’re very glad that these new rules will help tackle this dodgy tactic. We’d like to see similar outcomes-focussed rules introduced in other parts of the country that put the responsibility on retailers to make the process of switching as clear and simple as possible,” Cornelius says. 

“However, sneaky tactics like reusing plan names are a symptom of the broader, underlying unfairness in the retail energy market that leaves most consumers paying a ‘loyalty penalty’ for not switching plans as often as every few months.”

“The expectation that people can, and should, be constantly hunting for a better energy deal is unrealistic – and households that are already doing it tough are likely to face the most barriers to doing so. Energy is an essential service, and everyone should be able to turn on the lights at a fair price.”

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