West Australians experiencing financial hardship will be able to access free power under a new state government scheme.
Under the Community Energy program, announced on Monday, Synergy customers on financial hardship plans will not be charged for electricity used during non-peak times – 9am to 3pm – up to the value of 10 electricity credits.
It’s expected to save households up to $500 per year.
Announcing the scheme, WA Energy Minister Bill Johnston said about 9100 Synergy customers were on hardship programs.
“Everybody’s benefiting: The hardship customers are taking advantage of this additional assistance, Synergy’s benefiting because it’s increasing the amount of electricity used in the middle of the day, and the community benefits because they can see Synergy and the government are assisting the most disadvantaged.”
The Lacquiere family are one such family set to benefit. Adrian, wife Kelly, and their three children from the southeastern Perth suburb of Harrisdale said the scheme would go a long way to helping cut costs.
“It’s getting harder every month,” Ms Lacquiere said. “Everything is going up. The credit at Christmas time will be great, you start to think about kids returning to school and cost of school fees and school books, so it’s a great time.”
“With the number of rate rises we’ve had recently, that’s just further impacted the cost of living for us,” Mr Lacquiere said.
“Electricity bills are our biggest utility bill … small steps like this will be helpful for us as a family.”
The announcement comes on the same day as the first of two $200 electricity credits starts appearing on WA households’ power bills.
The second $200 will roll out in November and December.