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.
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!
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.
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.
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?”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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:
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.
Helen Ford
Deputy Ombudsman
Energy & Water Ombudsman NSW
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.
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.
Today, Energy Charter Signatories welcome Seán Mc Goldrick, CEO of Tasmania’s electricity transmission and distribution network TasNetworks, as the new Chair of the CEO Council for 2024.
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.
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.
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: 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, 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.
Energy Charter Industry Working Group (IWG) end-of-year workshop 2023
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:
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:
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 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.
On 31 January 2019, 17 CEOs gathered in Sydney to commit to the Energy Charter led by a Panel of:
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.
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.
Check out Kellie’s PowerPoint from the session to refer back to resources and access in future.
“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).”
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).
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
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
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:
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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:
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:
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.”
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.
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.
In the November 2023 News Update, CEO Council Chair, Guy Chalkley shares share strategic highlights from the annual Energy Charter Disclosures as well as future priorities for collaboration for customers and communities for the year ahead.
We also provide an update to the #BetterTogether Evaluating Transmission Undergrounding initiative with the survey now live to help understand community perspectives on decision-making about new transmission lines.
You can also register for the CEO Forum in December: Charting a Better Energy Future as well as find a list of all other upcoming events.
In September, the Resilience Community of Practice explored how forward-thinking organisations:
Speaker Fiona Dunk, Group Manager, Business Resilience for Signatory Jemena unravelled the compelling narratives to showcase the power of resilience in action.
As a starting point, Fiona pointed to the preparedness as the foundation of proactive Resilience noting that,
“In the face of uncertainty, preparedness is the compass that guides us through the storm.”
She highlighted that preparing well is the ability to recognise precedence, have strong situational awareness and foresight,
“We can’t rely on the playbook from last year – we need to prepare for this year.”
Preparedness is also about never loosing site of the opportunity to capture and implement lessons learnt. Every disruptive event offers an opportunity to learn and improve.
Regardless of the type of disruption, Fiona encourages a focus on community-centred resilience to achieve better outcomes for those impacted.
In simple terms, this means:
Part of this respecting and empowering your connections,
“Communities have vast resources and capacity to empower their people and respond to emergencies when you enable collective action. Provide the space and respect local partners.”
Following the presentation participants reflected on the below question and encouraged others to do the same with colleagues:
Fiona Dunk has more than 30 years of experience in Crisis & Emergency Management, Security and Resilience most recently as the Group Manager, Business Resilience for Jemena.
Fiona holds a Masters Degree in Business Technology from the University of New South Wales and has held roles in the Royal Australian Navy, Marine Safety Management, Port Emergency & Security Management, Crisis/Emergency management Consultancy and Project Management.
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:
