Rewiring Australia has welcomed a major rule change which will soon require households across eastern Australia to pay upfront fees of more than $2,000 to connect to gas.
The Australian Energy Market Commission made the decision which will apply to south-east Queensland, NSW, ACT and South Australia from next October. It brings these states into line with Victoria which already requires developers to pay upfront gas connection costs.
The decision is designed to prevent rising energy costs, with the cost of connections affecting all users under the previous rules because they were spread out across the network. That means existing users are subsidising developers to connect to new homes, even as gas demand declines.
Rewiring Australia supports the decision, which it has argued has been rewarding developers at the expense of families.
"For too long, developers have been imposing higher bills and more emissions on people by building gas-connected homes just because it saved them a bit of money," said Rewiring Australia CEO Francis Vierboom.
"This announcement fixes the economics. We can run our homes on electricity and we hope it marks the end of new gas connections nationwide. When you're in a hole, stop digging."
The latest figures from the Australian Energy Regulator show that gas has already slowed down, with only one new gas connection for every five new electricity connections across the country, and home gas usage declining by 15% last year according to the ABS.
Rewiring Australia's research has shown households that go fully electric, upgrading to more efficient and cleaner appliances stand to save thousands of dollars a year.
"We need to focus on helping more families and households electrify their homes so that they can benefit from cheaper and cleaner energy, and we need to do this urgently so that renters, and low income households aren't left behind and left stuck on gas," Francis Vierboom said.
