Aurora Energy’s 2023-24 Annual Report released

AURORA Energy has today released its 2023-24 Annual Report, highlighting its continued investment in Tasmania despite ongoing developments and challenges in the external environment.

“Despite great change and uncertainty amid a once in 100-year energy system transformation, we remained focussed on helping our customers make more informed energy choices and delivering value to them whilst giving back to the community” CEO Nigel Clark said.

Critical to empowering informed energy choices is the continued roll-out of advanced meters across the state, which will help to facilitate the development of modern products that enable energy insights, such as aurora+.

As of 30 June 2024, 220,000 or 80 per cent of all regulated residential and small business customers have had their basic meter replaced with an advanced meter.

The energy retailer recorded a profit after tax of $2.2M. This result was primarily driven by unfavourable operating costs, including bad and doubtful debts expense as cost-of-living pressures continued through the year.

Despite having the lowest regulated prices in Australia, Aurora Energy is cognisant of the difficulty being felt by homes and businesses across the state.

To help mitigate the pressure being felt due to the rising cost of living, Aurora Energy worked alongside State Government to deliver the Super Charged Renewable Energy Dividend, which provided $250 to every Tasmanian household and $300 to around 35,000 small businesses.

It came off the back of distributing Energy Bill Relief Fund payments to more than 100,000 customers, including small business.

In addition, Aurora Energy continued to expand the reach and impact of the Your Energy Support (YES) program which enabled 347 customers to complete the program and successfully get back on top of their electricity bills in 2023-24.

Other key highlights

In 2023-24, Aurora Energy:

• continued to enhance the customer experience of aurora+ users to encourage a greater number of Tasmanians to better understand and control their energy costs. On 30 June 2024 over 95,000 customers, or more than one in three Tasmanian homes, is now benefitting from having access to their energy usage information at their fingertips through aurora+;
• continued to encourage employees to be active participants in the community resulting in a boost to volunteering efforts sevenfold to over 1800 hours of direct contribution;
• launched aurora+ Power Hours which gives customers the opportunity to use unlimited electricity, free of charge in an available timeslot. As of June 2024, Tasmanians have saved approximately $305,000 over a total of 692,000 free hours;
• worked collaboratively alongside TasNetworks and the Tasmanian Men’s Sheds to create the Power People Project which aims to increase energy literacy within the community;
• provided an additional $35,000 to the No Interest Loans Scheme (NILS) Energy Saver Loan and Subsidy Program, which assists to bring practical and lasting benefits to those customers most in need. Aurora Energy’s contribution enabled 291 Tasmanians on a low-income access to energy efficient products, including 92 heat pumps, 103 fridges, 84 washing machines and 13 freezers. Since November 2015, Aurora Energy has provided more than $2.89M in funding to the program and are committed for another 3 years;
• became the founding partner of Variety Tasmania’s School Breakfast Program. The multi-year,$70,000 annual agreement will fund 15 schools’ breakfast programs from different areas across the state;
• migrated the final customer to our new retail energy platform in June 2024. The retail energy platform will enable Aurora Energy to substantially enhance front-line service capabilities as well as offer a more diverse range of products and offers.

View Aurora Energy’s 2023-24 Annual Report here.