April 2024 News Update

In the April 2024 news update, annual Disclosures were published by EnergyAustralia and SA Power Networks, our CEO Council met in Sydney with special guests Brendan French, CEO Energy Consumers Australia and Louise Pogmore, Energy Partner KPMG. Our conversations centred on collaboration opportunities for energy transition and cost-of-living supports.

We also launched the Energy Charter Impact Framework: an important step in the right direction to align our #BetterTogether initiatives with tangible impacts for those in our communities. Our Impact Framework brings to focus the “so what?” factor that needs to drive both our commitments and outcomes.

Read the News Update

Why does impact matter?

The importance of defining, measuring and communicating the impact of our work through an Impact Framework is an essential ingredient for delivering better outcomes for customers and communities.

We were thrilled to be joined by Tracy Collier, Founder and Director Action with Impact, Ciara Sterling, CEO Thriving Communities Partnership and Sabiene Heindl, our CEO, for a panel discussion hosted by Bec Jolly, our Director of Collaboration exploring the important impact in our collaborative work.

What is impact?

As part of this panel discussion, Tracy Collier shared what impact is and how impact measurement can form the basis for the work we do, identifying whether what we are doing is having the impact we’re hoping for. 

“It’s really about understanding the effects and changes that are occurring because of our work and who is being impacted by it … by measuring our impact, we can start to understand how [or if] our work is actually having the impact we hope it will.”

“Everything we do as humans and organisations, all of our decisions and our actions, have an impact on other people and the planet. Impact can be positive or negative … it exists whether we want to put it in an Impact Framework or not … however, you can’t change what you can’t see.”

Measuring impact allows us to:

  • Understand the value that we have on our customers and communities
  • Learn and  try new things
  • Test our assumptions for the work we do. 

Why did we develop the Energy Charter Impact Framework?

We were excited to officially launch the Energy Charter Impact Framework during this online session! 

Sabiene shared the reasons behind why we wanted to measure our collective impact.

“We’re busy running, all day, every day. Sometimes we don’t have time to look up and say ‘why are we doing this stuff?’ We all come into our work at the Energy Charter with making customer and community lives better, but do we actually know if that’s what it’s leading to? … The question is: what is the actual impact on the humans on the ground?” 

Sabiene encouraged the need for us all to have the ‘hold up the mirror’ conversation, to take time to understand why are you doing what you’re doing and seeing if you’re having the impact you think you’re working towards.

Tracy reflected “At the Energy Charter, it’s about better customer and community outcomes, so the Impact Framework helps to define what those outcomes are and how do we know we’re achieving those.”

We knew that we wanted our Impact Framework to be an evidence-based process, created to understand, measure and communicate the impact of our collective work. 

Tracy went on to share that “while working with the Energy Charter, we learnt that there really is benefit around the #BetterTogether initiatives and how it provides a space and a process for people to go from ‘hard-to-do’ challenges to ‘we can do this together’.”

Energy Charter Impact Framework overview

The Energy Charter Impact Framework has been designed to help us define, measure and communicate the impact of the collective work of the Energy Charter for customers and communities throughout our #BetterTogether initiatives.

To learn more, watch the short video below of Tracy explaining the high-level steps of our Impact Framework or jump over to our Impact Framework page for more details on each step. 

Benefits of focusing on impact for the energy sector

Within the Energy Charter, Sabiene explained that we will be using our Impact Framework across our #BetterTogether Initiatives and Communities of Practice, “but really the opportunity is the nudge the energy sector more broadly.”

To help with application of impact thinking across the sector, “we have set up an Impact Working Group which brings representatives from each of the Signatories together to talk about what this could look like for their business”.

As we work across the entire energy sector, being able to see things from different perspectives with the impact lens is critical in understanding the whole impact of our collective efforts. 

Sabiene explained that, “with many of our #BetterTogether initiatives, improvements to the impact of customers and communities will only work if, as a supply chain, we take a systems thinking approach. Our Impact Framework gives us the ability to do just that.”

Measuring impact at Thriving Communities Partnership

During the panel discussion, Ciara Sterling, CEO Thriving Communities Partnership (TCP) shared on the importance of measuring impact to meet their mission of every human within Australia having fair and equitable access to essential services and being able to thrive and live free from discrimination.

Ciara stated that throughout the process of developing an Impact Framework, TCP wanted to understand and measure their impact to enable them to dive into both the intended and unintended consequences of their work. 

“Similar to the Energy Charter, we also have that unique position that often we are acting as an intermediary for a number of our projects, working to influence change in the systems.”

“One of our largest evaluations [through our Impact Framework] has been the One Stop One Story Hub, a cross-sector digital platform that really enables frontline workers to incorporate community and government organisations to connect and refer their customers/clients [humans] to a range of supports through a single access point. 

We developed the Impact Framework during the co-design phase of the One Stop One Story Hub. We wanted the partners to be really involved in identifying the things that we want to measure.”

A key takeaway Ciara explored from their Impact Framework development was the need to measure the health and effectiveness of the partnerships throughout collaborative cross-sector work, especially looking at the ‘trust’ element being built between community and other organisations. This is evident in their evaluation of this project, including:

  • 98% of TCP’s partners have ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that their partners would act in the best interest of people experiencing vulnerability
  • 92% of TCP’s partners indicated that they were ‘constantly’ or ‘always’ learning from somebody else in the group
Being able to capture the outcomes and impact pathways shows that TCP are creating positive impact for the humans involved including those receiving the assistance, their partners and the organisations they’re working 

A platform for learning

To round up the session, Tracy shared her experience of embedding impact thinking in organisations, including that an impact-first approach is usually seen has a ‘too-hard to do’ or a ‘nice-to-have’. However, having an Impact Framework provides people with the framework needed to start thinking of impact earlier on in the conversation. It allows for new ways to learn from each other and helps guide efforts in a direction that is led by its intended impact.

It’s also critical to have a quantitative and qualitative approach. Tracy explained that “those two things together can really give us the story and help unpack or uncover insights … people go into an Impact Framework and think it’s all about numbers, where there’s actually so much richness in the stories too.”

Watch the ‘Why does impact matter?’ online discussion

If you missed the ‘Why does impact matter’ panel discussion, or would like to revisit the conversation, you can watch the recording below.

About the guest speakers

Tracy Collier, Founder and Director at Action with Impact

Tracy is a leader and mentor in Social Innovation and Impact, driven by the vision of an inclusive, just, and sustainable world. She works with organisations to improve their social impact by considering the lived experience of the people they affect and the system they operate in. 

Tracy’s approach combines design, research, evaluation, and partnership methods to deliver innovative and impactful solutions to complex problems. Tracy has a demonstrated history of developing strategic programs and partnerships between private, government, and social sectors to achieve social, economic, and environmental impact.

Ciara Sterling, CEO at Thriving Communities Partnership

Ciara Sterling is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Thriving Communities Partnership (TCP). TCP is a charity that convenes over 350 organisations across sectors and with people with lived experience to forge deeper understanding of vulnerability and drive ecosystem change through social design innovation.

Ciara Sterling has over 20 years’ experience collaborating across corporate, government, regulators, Ombudsman, community sectors and lived experience to address the root causes of vulnerability domestic abuse and inequality. Ciara is also a Non-Executive Director on the Board of Consumer Action Law Centre (CALC), is a member of the White Ribbon Advisory, the AER Customer Consultative Committee, and a founding member of the Economic Abuse Reference Group (EARG).

March 2024 News Update

Landholder Engagement Training Brisbane 2024

In our March 2024 News Update, read about the second round of Landholder Engagement Training in Brisbane, the launch of the first-ever Better Practice Renewables and Biodiversity: Opportunities for Collaboration Guide, the Wimmera Southern Mallee Collaboration led by Wimmera Southern Mallee Development and much more.

Read the News Update

Better Practice Renewables and Biodiversity: Opportunities for Collaboration Guide

Following a series of environment and energy cross-sector workshops in Queensland hosted by RE-Alliance, the Energy Charter and Powerlink Queensland, we are thrilled to announce the launch of the Better Practice Renewables and Biodiversity: Opportunities for Collaboration Guide on 27 February 2024!

Better Practice Renewables and Biodiversity

What is the Better Practice Renewables and Biodiversity Collaboration Guide?

With the acceleration of climate change as well as ecosystem decline, there’s a present challenge for making the switch to renewable energy. With a need to build new infrastructure to replace fossil fuels, there also needs to be improvement to and protection of protect our natural environment by reducing the impacts of new development wherever possible.

This Better Practice Renewables and Biodiversity: Opportunities for Collaboration Guide showcases several environmental interventions at every stage of renewable energy project development, from energy system design to end-of-life. It outlines some of what is possible through case studies and identifies opportunities for cross-sector collaboration.

This process emerged from a series of environment and energy cross-sector workshops in Queensland hosted by RE-Alliance, the Energy Charter and Powerlink Queensland.

The Better Practice Renewables and Biodiversity Collaboration Guide in-person launch

We’re proud to have partnered with RE-Alliance to launch the Better Practice Renewables and Biodiversity: Opportunities for Collaboration Guide alongside Andrew Bray, the National Director at RE-Alliance and Dave Copeman, the Director at Queensland Conservation Council, at the Energy Charter’s National Landholder Engagement Training. An event that brings local landholders, conservation and environmental groups, renewable energy developers and energy businesses together to share insights and tools for better practice.

Better Practice Renewables and Biodiversity: Opportunities for Collaboration Guide launch
Better Practice Renewables and Biodiversity: Opportunities for Collaboration Guide launch
Better Practice Renewables and Biodiversity: Opportunities for Collaboration Guide launch

Dave Copeman shared at the Better Practice Renewables and Biodiversity Collaboration Guide launch,

“This Guide maps a way for environmental groups and energy businesses to work together. It’s mapping a way to draw people in and say we can’t do this if we’re not in it together … we’ve got to find solutions together.

When we’re trying to work out how to build energy infrastructure, we’ve also got to put on “nature goggles” and say “where should we build this and where shouldn’t we?”

Better Practice Renewables and Biodiversity Collaboration Guide online launch + discussion

We were also excited for the online launch of the Better Practice Renewables and Biodiversity Collaboration Guide on 26 March 2024. Joining the discussion was Dave Copeman, Lu Allan from RE-Alliance, Rosie King from Energy Estate, Kiara Bowles from Powerlink Queensland and our CEO, Sabiene Heindl.

In this online event, we heard more about the Opportunities for Collaboration Guide, the collaborative efforts of Queensland environmental and conservation group representatives and energy businesses as well as a more detailed conversation about the purpose and application of the Guide. Watch the recording below.

Thank you to all the collaborators!

Working Group

Non-Government Organisations

Queensland Energy Sector

Download a copy of the Better Practice Collaboration Guide to learn more, or if you’d like to learn more about the #BetterTogether initiative behind this Guide, check out more information here.

Resilience Community of Practice – Natural disasters, the long-term customer experience

Resilience CoP February 2024 - Long-term customer experience

Australia is in the midst of a summer of extreme weather events – cyclones, monsoons, flooding, bushfires. The immediate response to these events is extensive, garnering a combined reaction from the community, industry, and policy makers to find quick and effective solutions to ensure the safety of the community.

How will the experiences and needs of impacted people change in the coming months and years following these natural disasters?

In our first Resilience Community of Practice session of 2024, Helen Ford, Deputy Ombudsman at the Energy & Water Ombudsman NSW (EWON) shared learnings from their recent Spotlight On report ‘Natural disasters – the long-term customer experience‘, which looks at complaints related to NSW bushfires and floods to understand the customer experience in the medium and long term.

The NSW context

Every Local Government Area (LGA) in NSW has been included in a flood or bushfire disaster declaration at least once between July 2018 and October 2023.

Natural disasters in NSW

Immediate and short-term energy issues

The immediate response to these events is extensive, garnering a combined reaction from the community, industry, and policy makers to find quick and effective solutions to ensure the safety of the community.

While extreme weather events have an immediate and catastrophic impact, they are followed by a long tail of complicated impacts on individuals, local and surrounding communities. Reports like the Thriving Communities Partnership Disaster Planning and Recovery Project and the Energy Charter Disaster Response Playbook detail these impacts.

Helen explains, “EWON is not a first or even second responder; we are primarily a long-term responder. Safety and wellbeing are paramount in the initial response and recovery period. Immediately following a disaster, the majority of energy issues are urgent matters like safety hazards, damage, outages, and access to other essential services like telecommunications and transport.”

“We look in admiration on the work you [the energy sector] as first responders do.”

In the image below are some of the immediate and short-term energy issues post a disaster event.

Immediate and short term energy issues

Medium and long-term energy issues

As EWON are long-term responders, Helen explains that “we know trauma comes from having to repeat stories time and time again … events can continue to impact people for years and they may experience more than one event.”

“Empathy wains as time passes, so expectations about what is fair and reasonable become less clear … but months after an event, customers are still experiencing deep vulnerability.” 

In the image below are some of the medium and long-term energy customer complaint themes EWON have assisted to resolve.

Resilience Community of Practice co-host Desiree Sassanfar, Ausgrid, reflected, “It is good to hear the growing recognition of there being no defined end to recovery. When I moved into Emergency Management, I remember hearing about families who were yet to rebuild almost 10 years after the Black Saturday Bushfires in Victoria. 

It is so important to highlight that everyone’s recovery journey is unique. As network providers and retailers, we need to adapt to support our customers for this undefined period, even when we can often be highly operational businesses.”

The way forward…

Energy Charter Signatories have been on the front line of emergency responses and working hard to keep up with more frequent and severe weather events. Many, including those participating in the Energy Charter’s Resilience Community of Practice, are looking for proactive ways to support community resilience and deliver a better customer experience through disaster recovery.

Helen’s industry call to actions include:

  1. Proactively develop long-term support plans

    This planning needs to be informed by an understanding that:
    • impacts continue for years after the event
    • people may experience multiple events
    • the nature and level of impact changes over time.
  1. Identify and address factors contributing to customer stress, dissatisfaction, and lack of confidence in the energy sector culminating in complaint fatigue


    Helen says, “Energy providers need to use insights from internal and external complaints to identify ways to foster better understanding of the impact of extreme weather events and avoid complaint fatigue in customers.”

    Customers go to EWON when they are experiencing ongoing and long-term billing, supply and affordability issues, often months or even years after their homes or businesses were destroyed or deemed uninhabitable.

    Helen says, “While providers often get it right, complaints are an invaluable source of insights about where things can improve.”

    “Our commitment is that EWON will continue this conversation within the energy sector, and beyond, to share the insights from our complaints and gain insights from others.

Session resources 

Natural Disasters - the long-term customer experience PowerPoint
Natural Disasters - the long-term customer experience February 2024 recording

Helen Ford
Deputy Ombudsman
Energy & Water Ombudsman NSW

About the speaker

In 2018/19 Helen Ford was appointed Deputy Ombudsman at the Energy & Water Ombudsman NSW, to provide strategic support to the Ombudsman and undertake high level stakeholder engagement.

Before joining EWON, Helen worked for over a decade at the NSW Ombudsman’s office dealing with complaints about NSW government agencies and investigating systemic issues. She gained practical policy development experience working in the NSW Maritime Division of Roads and Maritime Services to improve operational procedures for Boating Safety Officers.

About this Community

This event is part of the Energy Charter’s Resilience Community of Practice dedicated to helping customers and communities better prepare, respond and recover from disaster events.

Every second month, the Energy Charter host a Community of Practice, including expert-led discussions building on the topics covered in the Energy Charter’s Disaster Response Playbook.

Every second month, the Energy Charter host a Community of Practice, including expert-led discussions building on the topics covered in the Energy Charter’s Disaster Response Playbook. Learn more about the Resilience Community of Practice.

Happy 5th Birthday to the Energy Charter!

Energy Charter Launch 2019

Today, the Energy Charter turns 5!

In some ways it feels like the blink of the eye since 17 CEOs gathered in Sydney to launch a world-first, whole of energy sector initiative to address customer expectations.

Yet at the same time, for our customers, community and the sector there have been unparalleled challenges and opportunities to navigate including COVID-19, cost-of-living crisis and the rapidly accelerating shift to renewables.

Increasing collaboration + decentralised accountability

The Energy Charter started out as purely an accountability mechanism against 5 Principles, focusing on embedding customer-centric culture and conduct in energy businesses to create real improvements in affordability and service delivery. For the first 3 years, Signatories delivered comprehensive Disclosures to an Independent Accountability Panel and CEOs were publicly interviewed and assessed on their performance.

In 2020, collaborative initiatives emerged. The #BetterTogether initiatives involve customer and community representatives working with industry through an innovation platform of “ideate, incubate and accelerate” to make meaningful change and deliver impact and outcomes.

In 2021, following a 3-Year Strategic Review, the Energy Charter CEO Council agreed to place greater focus on cross-sector collaboration through the #BetterTogether initiatives to deliver better outcomes for customers and communities. Full Signatories continued to focus on accountability publishing annual Disclosures demonstrating how they performed against the Energy Charter Principles. Building on the gains made over the last 3 years, the accountability framework now leverages existing business’ stakeholder consultation structures, rather than through the Independent Accountability Panel.

Over the last 4 years we’ve collaborated across 20 #BetterTogethers, rolled out 3 independent Customer Codes and supported 3 Communities of Practice. Signatories have published 91 Disclosures assessing their maturity and detailing outcomes and forward commitments to customers and communities.

What have we learnt?

Culture time is a slow burn. It takes leadership. It takes true commitment by Boards, CEOs and people at all levels within the business. It takes important gestures to build trust, such as setting up genuine mechanisms to listen to customers and communities and act upon them.

CEO Forum 2023

CEO Forum: Charting a Better Energy Future 2023. Read the blog here.

In our case, this has been the set-up of Customer and Community Outcome Groups (COGs) to strategically guide our #BetterTogether initiatives.

Joy Thomas - Ag Energy Rountable

Joy Thomas, Independent Chair, Ag + Energy Social Licence Roundtable

And, last but certainly not least, it remains essential to have a dedicated platform for collaboration like the Energy Charter to drive the change that is needed most.

IWG End of year workshop 2023

Energy Charter Industry Working Group (IWG) end-of-year workshop 2023

Continuous improvement

Since our inception, we’ve gained new Signatories including AusNet Services, Jacana Energy (NT), Horizon Power (WA), SA Power Networks and TasNetworks and new Signatory categories:

  • #BetterTogether Collaborators: including Energy Estate (our first renewable developer), and
  • Energy Charter Supporters: including AEMO and JLL Infrastructure.

We’ve also entered Collaboration Agreements with water sector, renewables and community sector partners.

We have grown the team to 4 dynamic and committed individuals, who work collaboratively across the energy sector with customers and communities on key priorities across social licence in the energy transition and energy affordability.

Energy Charter team at the Leadership Retreat 2023

We have also been building our Impact Framework in 2023, launching in March 2024. Work with Action with Impact reinforced that the Energy Charter:

  • Creates a trusted national platform to raise awareness and share customer and community opportunities across the entire energy sector
  • Provides a framework approach to understanding challenges and respond collaboratively to bridge the gap between ‘hard-to-do’ and ‘can-do’ with a big and bold mindset
  • Builds a trusted space to share learnings, have difficult conversations and scale solutions that benefit customers and communities
  • Leverages ‘building block’ structure through the #BetterTogether framework to create pathways from research and insights into action + impact
  • Aligns CEOs to a shared accountability model, to self-assess maturity and commit to better outcomes for customers and communities.

Who are we now?

The Energy Charter is a unique coalition of like-minded energy organisations with a shared purpose and passion for customers and communities. We are here to stay.

We know that customers and communities rely on all of us. We all use energy every day. It lights our homes and powers businesses. We’re all part of the same ecosystem, so working #BetterTogether is vital now and into the future.

Our purpose is to empower one another to deliver better energy outcomes for customers and communities. Our vision is that together, we can create a better energy future for all Australians.

For us, the opportunity is to keep humans at the centre of the design and delivery of energy solutions; to navigate the changing needs of customers and communities as we transform to a cleaner energy future.

There really is no other collaboration like us; and the work we do, together, has never been more important than it is today. We are #BetterTogether.

We thank all the amazing people that have contributed to the journey of the Energy Charter and pay tribute to those that kicked us off!

The story of energy - An artwork is by Ngarrindjeri artist, Jordan Lovegrove

The above artwork is by Ngarrindjeri artist, Jordan Lovegrove tells the story of energy, how it connects all of Australia and the Energy Charter’s commitment to create a better energy future for all Australians. Learn more here.

Background

On 31 January 2019, 17 CEOs gathered in Sydney to commit to the Energy Charter led by a Panel of:

  • John Cleland, Chief Executive Officer, Essential Energy
  • Nevenka Codevelle, Energy Charter Industry Working Group Chair 
  • Mick McCormack, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, APA Group
  • Ed McManus, Chief Executive Officer, Powershop
  • Andrew Richards, Chief Executive Officer, Energy Users’ Association of Australia
  • Rosemary Sinclair AM, Chief Executive Officer, Energy Consumers Australia
  • David Smales, Chief Executive Officer, Energy Queensland
  • Catherine Tanna, Managing Director, EnergyAustralia

Original Signatories included: AGL, APA Group, Aurora Energy, Ausgrid, AusNet Services, Australian Gas Infrastructure Group, CS Energy, Endeavour Energy, Energy Queensland Limited including Ergon Energy Network, Energex, Yurika and Ergon Energy Retail, EnergyAustralia, Essential Energy, Jemena & Ovida, Meridian Energy Australia & Powershop Australia, Origin Energy, Powerlink Queensland, Stanwell and Transgrid.

Community of Practice – Engagement that informs strategy and customer pricing

Community of Practice – Engagement that informs strategy and customer pricing

A transformational journey toward best practice customer and community engagement

Discover the expert-led discussions as part of the ‘Know your Customers + Communities’ Community of Practice’ that covers a range of engagement topics specific to the energy and water sectors. These sessions focus on insight sharing and building capability to better engage with customers and communities and ensure the ‘customer voice’ can be heard across all levels within businesses.

In December, we heard from Kellie King, General Manager Community & Corporate Services at Wannon Water about their transformational journey, starting in 2017, toward better practice customer and community engagement, in pursuit of becoming a truly customer centric organisation. 

In 2023, Wannon Water won the IAP2 Core Values Organisation of the year for Australasia, and also took out the IAP2 Core Values Organisation of the year Internationally!

Wannon Water began by developing their own definition of community engagement and a new Community Engagement Framework and ‘toolkit’. Built on a commitment to best practice from their most senior levels, the framework is based on the IAP2 Core Values.

They delivered framework training across their organisation and designed a new “Wannon Water Engagement Cycle” (WWEC), a comprehensive annual program that informs their yearly strategic plan and provides iterative input to setting our five-yearly customer pricing.

Watch Kellie discuss Wannon Water's engagement journey

Engaging Wanon Water PowerPoint

Engaging Wannon Water PowerPoint

Check out Kellie’s PowerPoint from the session to refer back to resources and access in future.

Download the PowerPoint

Introducing Kellie King, General Manager Community and Corporate Services at Wannon Water

“My purpose is to facilitate great outcomes for people and their communities. I am a values driven, people-centred, leader and executive. My focus is on partnership, engagement, relationships, wellbeing, integrity, and ethics.

My background includes working within local and state governments, not-for-profit organisations, small business, government business enterprise and running my own consultancy business.

Past roles have spanned the education, health, community, and water sectors in metropolitan and regional areas in Victoria, Australia. I’m grateful to be a graduate of Leadership Victoria’s Williamson Community Leadership Program, JMW’s Leader of the Future Program, the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD) course and hold accreditation as a Partnership Broker with the Partnership Brokers Association (PBA).”

Kellie King Wannon Water
LinkedIn icon

About the Know your Customers + Communities events

This event is part of the Energy Charter’s ‘Know your Customers + Communities’ Community of Practice. This Community of Practice is a collaboration between the Energy Charter and Water Services Association of Australia under our Collaboration Memo of Understanding (MoU). 

Energy Charter Disclosure 2022-23

Charting a Better Energy Future - EC Disclosure

Charting a Better Energy Future

Charting a better future is always an iterative process. Every year since 2019, I have seen the Energy Charter grow its reach and impact through our #BetterTogether initiatives and stay nimble in aligning to customer and community expectations in an energy system that’s rapidly transforming.

I’m proud to share the Energy Charter Disclosure 2022-23. Its purpose is two-fold: to provide an overview of the collective progress we have made over the past year across #BetterTogether initiatives and through our Accountability Process, and to inform where we focus our efforts in the future.

In our Disclosure, there’s a summary of our 12 #BetterTogether initiatives and their outcomes, our observations on the collective maturity self-assessments and a summary view of themes across all Signatory Disclosures. Overall, the maturity of Signatories has continued to trend in the right direction, however at a pace that reflects the growing complexity of the cost-of-living and transition challenges for our customers and communities. 

Looking to the future, it’s clear we must stay the course with our #BetterTogether initiatives and Communities of Practice to address growing cost-of-living pressures and social licence challenges. 

There is always more we can do…..

Sabiene Heindl
Executive Director
The Energy Charter

Energy Charter Disclosure 2023
Read the Disclosure

Our collaborative highlights

Our outgoing CEO Council Chair 2023, Guy Chalkley, CEO Endeavour Energy proudly shared some key highlights that we have delivered for customers and communities, including:

Guy Chalkley
CEO Council Chair 2023
CEO Endeavour Energy

Celebrating our key achievements with Energy Charter Signatory CEOs

On 6 December 2023, we celebrated our collective achievements for customers and communities at our CEO Forum: Charting a Better Energy future.

“There’s such a willingness to share and finding better ways of doing things” – Stephanie Unwin on our unique CEO-led collaboration.

“The #BetterPractice Social Licence Guideline is a bible” – Sean Mc Goldrick on the importance of working together on the issues that matter.

We were thrilled to hear from a panel of Energy Charter Signatory CEOs from across the nation to celebrate our collaboration highlights, including:

  • Guy Chalkley, CEO Council Chair and CEO Endeavour Energy (NSW)
  • Andrew Bills, CEO Council Deputy Chair and CEO SA Power Networks
  • Stephanie Unwin, CEO Horizon Power
  • Louisa Kinnear, CEO Jacana Energy
  • John Cleland, CEO Essential Energy
  • Seán Mc Goldrick, CEO TasNetworks
  • Mark Brownfield, CCO EnergyAustralia
  • Sabiene Heindl, ED Energy Charter

And last, but certainly not least, a massive thank you!

Thank you to our Independent Chairs and Administrator, End-User Consultative Group and Consumer + Community Outcome Group members together with the Energy Charter Signatories for your continued support and active participation. 

By working #BetterTogether and leading the way, we can continue to put customers and communities at the centre of our business and the energy system. We can chart a better future for us all, together.

Resilience Community of Practice – Bushfire Preparedness and Lessons Learnt

Preparing networks for extreme weather to keep customers and communities safe

After three years of La Niña rains suppressed bushfire activity, this spring and summer may be the most active fire season in four years. What does it mean to prepare well, and what have we learnt from previous bushfire responses?

In the November Resilience Community of Practice, we heard from Paul Erwin, Head of Customer Service at SA Power Networks regarding the work SA Power Networks (SAPN) is doing to prepare for the season ahead, including working with critical partners like the SA Country Fire Service.

The impacts of extreme weather on communities + energy networks

When it comes to extreme weather, energy network providers need to prepare for a range of scenarios to ensure customers and communities stay safe and connected to power.

Paul explains that there are various scenarios that need to be considered, especially when the hotter months are among us. Some of these extreme weather events include:

  • Extended heatwaves with hot nights result in high levels of energy demand and equipment gets little chance to cool
  • Bushfires that can cause significant damage and outages
  • Lightning strikes impact infrastructure and cause outages
  • High winds can bring down trees and tree limbs or propel airborne debris and cause significant damage.

These impacts are common challenges faced by all energy providers. Paul goes on the explain that,

“[Networks] can be damaged by a fire, it can be damaged by smoke from a fire that can trip it off and it’s vulnerable during storms to the impact of things like trees or wind blowing debris and other impacts like lightning strikes during a storm.

So, for those of you that are network providers, this is nothing unusual to you, but it’s something that’s important that you can relate in your communications to customers about why they’re experiencing a number of outages that they may experience throughout their lifetime connected to the network.”

Preparing for extreme weather conditions, including bushfire season, is critical to ensure customers, communities and equipment all stay safe.

Proactive measures and planning for extreme weather

At SAPN, Paul explains the sophisticated approach they take to minimising risks to customers and equipment, as well as the steps in preparing for the impacts of extreme weather events including bushfires and storms.

“We have what we believe is a sophisticated approach to minimising those risks to the best that we possibly can. Understanding we’re still going to bear some of those problems; we prepare for summer and extreme weather events well and truly in advance.”

SAPN use various tools and methods, such as daily monitoring of weather, twice-weekly briefings with meteorologists, and specific response levels (Fire Danger Level, Emergency Response Level and Minimum State Demand) to manage and mitigate potential risks.

The ‘weather and network impacts monitoring workflow’ below illustrates the extensive planning, communication and response in the case of an extreme event.

Bushfire seasonal preparations

When it comes to having an electricity network that’s primarily above ground, careful consideration is essential to minimise risks of the equipment starting fires.

Paul explains that when the bushfire season does start, asset inspectors continually assess the asset and look at whether there needs to be greater attention brought to certain areas. This includes the use of drones, helicopters and ground patrols.

We also heard the additional extensive bushfire seasonal preparation that SAPN completes ahead of the season, including:

  • Rectifying any identified bushfire and supply risk defects and ensuring key network projects completed prior to summer
  • Tree trimming
  • Training operational personnel/emergency management exercises
  • Ensuring emergency spare parts in stock
  • Preparing call centre and social media messaging
  • Writing to Life Support Customers, MP’s.

Emergency disconnections during bushfire season

When conditions are deteriorating and not looking to improve, in severe cases, emergency disconnections may be required. Paul explained the degree to which SAPN go to on a fire danger day in getting ready to proactively conduct an emergency disconnection to keep communities safe.

This response follows a Disconnection Procedure Flowchart (pictured below), where Paul explained the steps that are followed, including:

  • Continually assessing and monitoring reports, network activity, damage reports, weather reports and more
  • If a situation is verified to the appropriate Fire Danger Level which requires disconnection, a specialist group is formed called the Disconnection Order Group
  • The Disconnection Order group has various different components across the business, all the way from where Paul sits, in the customer and community space, through to network field services, logistics and more
  • They report directly to an Operations Director where they will make a recommendation after discussing with the CFS whether to disconnect and then seek authorised approval. This approval must come from SAPN’s CEO.

Keeping the community informed at every stage

SAPN engages in proactive communication with customers when forecasts indicate significant Emergency Response Level or Fire Danger Level conditions. This includes reaching out to Life Support Customers, MPs, nursing homes and other major customers, to inform them of preparations for extreme weather events.

Paul went on to explain that social media is a critical platform to spread messages during events, especially since the statewide blackout South Australia experienced in 2016. During this event, they saw an increase in Facebook followers who helped share posts and pictures. Social media continues to remain engaging with their community since.

They also utilise SMS as Paul explains “We’ve got automated systems that just immediately send out SMS messages to customers soon as we know a part of the network is off, either that we can see it remotely or that customers call us about it.”

This two-way communication with their customers is essential to see a full picture of what’s happening on the ground and let their customers that they are listening and acting to ensure they remain safe.

In major events, SAPN deliver targeted, bespoke messaging to localised groups of customers regarding restoration times.

During bushfires, communications can be quite different to usual. Paul states that, “we sort of broke that up where we twice a day we’ll go out to customers in the middle of the day at the end of the day to say this is how far we’ve got with our reconnections and your area is coming up next in the following day and again that that gathers kudos from customers.”

Paul highlights the importance of communicating to customers and communities, stating that “We do as much as we can to make sure that we are preparing and informing the community [about] what we’re doing to prepare … and advising them on what they need to do when there is a bushfire.”

Session resources 

Bushfire Preparedness + Lessons Learnt PowerPoint
Bushfire Preparedness + Lessons Learnt November 2023 recording
About the speaker

Head of Customer Service at SA Power Networks, Paul Erwin has three decades of experience in the energy sector and wealth of knowledge on driving better customer outcomes in the energy sector.

He’s a seasoned member of SAPNs emergency response team, having been involved in numerous incident responses, including for bushfires, floods events and severe storms. Paul is passionate about better protections for customers in vulnerable circumstances and ensuring businesses put their efforts toward the actions that matter most to customers.

In his time at SAPN, Paul has managed teams across customer, community and retailer relations. He also has an M.B.A and Graduate Certificate in Business Administration from the University of South Australia, and is Graduate of the University of Adelaide’s Professional Management program.

About this event

This event is part of the Energy Charter’s Resilience Community of Practice dedicated to helping customers and communities better prepare, respond and recover from disaster events.

Every second month, the Energy Charter host a Community of Practice, including expert-led discussions building on the topics covered in the Energy Charter’s Disaster Response Playbook. Learn more about the Resilience Community of Practice.