Narrandera Shire Council mayor Neville Kschenka says it is time to even out the price of electricity between regional and metro consumers. 

“It’s just not fair,  and it’s been brought to our attention by our own ratepayers and other councils,” he said.

“We want fair pricing between the two regions.”

In NSW, electricity retailers set their own prices and take into account the costs to generate electricity, distribute it through the networks, any environmental costs as well as their own retail costs and margins.

While retailers set their own prices, the cost of their supply charges for a household helps to cover the price of network costs. 

The supply charge is a daily fee to be connected to the network.

The networks provide the infrastructure for the transmission lines and there are three main networks that service NSW. 

Ausgrid and Endeavour Energy provide electricity across the Sydney, Central Coast, Hunter Region, Newcastle, Blue Mountains, Southern Highlands and Illawarra areas.

Essential Energy covers rural and regional NSW as well as a few coastal areas, comprising 95 per cent of the state’s land.

Essential Energy is owned by the state government and regulated by the Australian Energy Regulator (AER), which means most of its distribution services are subject to revenue and price controls determined by the AER. 

In a statement, a spokesperson for the AER says higher costs on the Essential Energy network are due to customers using more energy, the fact it is a larger distribution zone with fewer people, and the network costs (poles and wires) per customer being higher. 

But at a recent NSW local government conference, a motion to advocate for cheaper prices in the regions was passed.

The Local Government NSW (LGNSW) body will advocate to the state government for Essential Energy to align rural supply charges with those applied to city and coastal consumers. 

The Minister for Energy Penny Sharpe did not comment on the motion but said she was open to receiving correspondence from local councils. 

The motion from the local government NSW conference was set to be discussed in the body’s first board meeting when it will establish policy positions from the conference and from there will begin raising the issue with Ms Sharpe.

The minimum daily electricity tariff in metro NSW can be as low as $0.79 but in regional and rural NSW the lowest daily charge is almost double that amount. 

Narrandera is among the councils pushing for this to change.  

Local government NSW is advocating to the state’s energy minister to align rural supply charges with those applied to city and coastal consumers.

The minimum daily electricity tariff in metro NSW can be as low as $0.79 but in regional and rural NSW, the lowest daily charge is $1.57 – almost double the amount.