Demand for gas from households and business in South Australia is forecast to fall by 20 per cent over the coming five years, even despite the state’s bizarre planning rules and complete lack of policy incentives to transition consumers away from the fossil fuel.
The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) on Thursday published its final determination on the revenue the state’s gas network company, Australian Gas Networks AGN, can recover from its customers in the five-year period from 2026 to 2031.
The AER’s final decision for AGN allows for $1,370.3 million in total revenue to be recovered from consumers over the period – slightly less than what AGN was seeking – as the regulator seeks to balance ongoing efficient investment in the network with “uncertainty associated with the energy transition.”
The “uncertainty” refers to the outlook for just how quickly AGN’s roughly 480,000 customers will abandon its SA network of 8,510 km of gas pipelines, as they swap out the 25,542 terajoules (TJ) of gas consumed in 2024 for cheaper and cleaner solar and battery-backed electricity.
In its determination, the AER says that demand is forecast to decline faster than revenue over the 2026-31 period, resulting in AGN’s tariffs increasing by an average of 3.9 per cent each year.
