Pricing

Tariffs and charges

As a regulated business, the prices we can charge customers for the network services they receive are approved each year by the Australian Energy Regulator (AER). Our pricing is amongst the lowest in the country.

There are two categories of prices:

• Network charges: the cost to deliver electricity to your home or business via the high voltage transmission network as well as our distribution network
• Alternative control services: metering, public lighting and various customer requested service charges (for example, connection costs for new residential developments).

The network and metering charges form part of the electricity bill you receive from your energy retailer. On average, these charges are about 33% of a Powercor customer’s bill and 29% of a CitiPower customer’s bill.

The network charge you pay depends on which tariff you have selected to be on with your energy retailer. There are various options available, for example:

• Different classes of tariffs depending on where you draw your power from and how much you use: low voltage residential, low voltage business, large low voltage, high voltage and sub-transmission
• Categories of tariffs for each class depending on when you use power: fixed charge, peak energy rate, shoulder energy rate, off peak energy rate, demand rate.

How much we can charge in total for these is subject to a revenue cap. This form of control is managed by the AER. It means that each year, we need to ensure the proposed prices and the quantity of services proposed for the next year will not result in us receiving more revenue than was approved by the AER.

The AER recently approved our annual network pricing proposals for 2023-2024, which are due to commence from 1 July 2023.

Importantly, for residential customers, CitiPower and Powercor are among the lowest cost networks in the country.

The annual network component of a typical bill for Powercor customers will be $31.14 higher for households and $44.10 higher for small businesses in 2023–24 compared to 2022–23.

For CitiPower customers, this will be $2.39 higher for households and $7.14 higher for small businesses in 2023–24 compared to 2022–23.

Your electricity bill

Your electricity bill represents all the costs associated with supplying power to your home or business. Network and metering charges are among these costs.

The average annual bill comprises:

• Wholesale electricity costs charged by generators
• Retail charges
• Environmental policies set by governments
• Transmission network costs
• Distribution network costs
• Metering charges.

So what do we spend this portion of your electricity bill on? Our key activities include:

• maintaining network safety and reliability to meet the current power supply needs of our customers
• extending and upgrading the network so that the future power supply needs of customers are met when required
• operating the network on a day to day basis
• connecting new customers to the network
• maintaining the public lighting system
• providing metering services.

The Price Stack represents costs associated with supplying power to your home or business.