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Help topic: Gas

We’ve made the decision to begin retailing gas, for three very good reasons:

• Gas is a fact of life for about 80% of Victorians, and we know that Victorians want a better gas company. It is simply unrealistic for many Australians to avoid using gas at home (they either rent or would find it cost prohibitive to retrofit their homes to operate without gas – that may cost a home owner up to $20,000 depending on their home). With gas not going away in the near future, we’ve decided to retail it as we believe we’re capable of doing it in a better way (fairer, transparent customer operations and a greener solution behind the scenes). In parallel, we’ll also be helping to provide education to help households move away from gas if possible.
• To be frank – gas will help us grow our business because many customers are telling us they want gas and electricity with the same retailer. The more we grow, the more we can do for renewable energy in Australia (read about our group’s new hydro power assets and recent power purchase agreements, which we’ve added to our portfolio of two wind farms). We have always stated that we will generate more renewable energy than our customers require. As our customer base grows, this means we need to go out into the market and either build more renewable assets or support renewable energy projects being developed by others. Retailing gas allows us to grow our customer base, which in turns allows us to invest in Australia’s renewable future and continue the work we do to clean up Australia’s energy industry. So the choice is, not retail gas and do less renewables, or retail gas and do more renewables. Because we care about renewables, we are going with the latter.
• Our customers have been screaming (not literally, but almost) for us to retail gas since we launched in Victoria in 2014. We know that many Australians want to support companies doing the right thing, acting in ethical and transparent ways and protecting the planet. That is us. We’re not perfect, but we have worked very hard to improve the energy industry since we launched – we’re the only power company to be accredited 100% carbon neutral by the Australian government, we do not door knock people’s homes, we’ve actively and vocally campaigned for the RET and energy policy stability in Australia, and much more. If our customers have gas at their homes or businesses, they at least deserve the choice of buying it from us, knowing that we’re doing as much good as we can behind the scenes.