Placing a high value on safety of customers and staff was viewed as a given and seen as essential.

The feedback came from 14 forums across the network, including two forums in Port Macquarie, as Essential Energy engaged with customers ahead of its 2019 to 2024 regulatory submission.

There have also been interviews and online surveys.

Essential Energy submits a regulatory proposal every five years to the Australian Energy Regulator, which includes its proposed capital and operating plans, and the funding needed to deliver them.

Essential Energy chief executive officer John Cleland said Essential Energy gathered broad feedback and asked a range of questions on broad and very specific issues.

“These forums have been particularly timely, given both the amount of change that has been ongoing within Essential Energy, and the amount of change going on in the electricity sector generally,” Mr Cleland said.

“One of the key outputs from the sessions has been to understand what is most important to the customers of Essential Energy.

“First and foremost safety was the overarching priority, then affordability and reliability were the most important issues from the customers’ perspective.”

That was followed by environmentally friendly/encouraging renewables, good communication/customer service, an innovative user of technology, and transparency of prices on bills.

Mr Cleland said Essential Energy needed to make long-term decisions on the manner in which it operated and maintained the network, and the extent to which it invested in the network into the future, the quantum of that investment and the nature of that investment.

Essential Energy is responsible for building, operating and maintaining one of Australia's largest electricity networks. 

Mr Cleland said there was so much happening in the energy sector.

“There is a considerable amount of concern and controversy around energy security and the cost of energy in Australia,” he said.

“Clearly that is impacting materially on this business and very much influencing our thinking about long-term planning and strategies around the operation of the network.”

Mr Cleland said one of the important pieces of information provided to customers through the forums was that the proportion of the average customer bill comprised of distribution was roughly 36 per cent.

Those distribution charges have reduced somewhat over the last five years. 

“A lot of the increase in energy costs have been due to the wholesale cost of energy rather than distribution costs,” he said.

One of Essential Energy’s core objectives is to minimise increases in distribution charges over the longer term.

It will aim to keep the rate of increase in charges in the 2019-2024 period as low as possible.

Mr Cleland said Essential Energy was working very hard to ensure it continued to provide a platform on which consumers could optimise their energy consumption and purchasing.

Essential Energy will again engage with customers after it issues a draft submission.