Drought fundamentally affected how farmers interacted with electricity and with tariffs. 14 of the 35 farmers were drought declared at the time of the interviews, however some had already, and many farmers were expecting to have the drought declaration revoked in their Local Government Area (LGA) in the following months. The Drought Assistance available to farmers in the form of waived supply charges for those without water in drought declared LGA’s (full conditions HERE) played a significant role in tariff selection and many were (or still are) facing decisions around tariffs as further tariffs expire in 2023.
Here we share some examples of farmers’ responses to drought assistance and clarification from Ergon Energy on the specifics of the drought assistance for electricity package. For more information, see the RESOURCES section below.
SCENARIOS
Losing supply charge waived fees
More and more LGAs are coming out of drought declaration, so many farmers are worried about losing their waived supply charges on expensive large customer tariffs or transitional tariffs. Many have already noticed they will need to change tariffs quickly when the drought declarations are lifted in their area, but they aren’t sure exactly what they should do.
See RESOURCES below for considerations on what farmers can do when their LGA comes out of drought declaration.
Fine print in the drought declaration supply charge waiver
Daniel runs a large soybean growing operation, and as his area is drought declared he was able to get the supply charge on his large customer tariff waived. He chose tariff 46, which has a very high supply charge (to be waived) and a low per kWh charge. After a short time on tariff 46 with drought assistance waiving the supply charge, he was told that the waiver was uneconomical for Ergon and that he needed to choose an alternative large customer tariff. Other farmers have been confused in getting the drought declared waiver, as they’ve been told they can’t get it if they have any water on the property or if they are not irrigation-dominant farming operations.
Is there a limitation to the drought declaration payments, like Daniel’s case implies? What other fine print exists that stops farmers in drought areas from having their supply charges waived?