Australian National Energy Equity Framework: Phase 2 summary Report

In June 2017, the Finkel Review delivered a plan to maintain security and reliability in the National Energy Market (NEM) as the sector transitioned to a new future. The report found that structural issues in the energy market meant that consumers facing vulnerability and hardship experience limited benefits from new Distributed Energy Resources (DER) technologies such as rooftop solar. Since the release of the Finkel Review, affordability and wellbeing challenges for many Australian households have intensified due to high energy prices and rising costs of living. These developments have led to a growing number of Australians unable to use energy in their homes without suffering or compromising other needs.
It is important that all consumers are able to share in the benefits of the energy transition, in particular, consumers on low incomes and those experiencing vulnerability and hardship or otherwise facing barriers to accessing the benefits of DER and energy efficiency improvements (e.g., renters). Designing policies and programs to deliver the benefits of the energy transition to all households requires a comprehensive understanding of these households, particularly their circumstances, their interactions with the energy sector and the barriers and challenges they face. This understanding will require new frameworks to understand and articulate energy hardship, as well as new metrics to evaluate the performance of energy sector initiatives and progress towards alleviating energy hardship. This spawned a three-phase body of work: the Energy Equity Work Program