The Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government (BETA), in partnership with the Australian Energy Regulator (AER), has released the Improving Energy Bills Final Report.
The report applies behavioural insights to the design of energy bills and will inform the AER’s development of a new Better Bills Guideline.
The Better Bills Guideline is a result of a rule change request from the Honourable Angus Taylor MP, Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction to amend the National Energy Retail Rules (NERR).
The rule change requires the AER to develop an enforceable guideline intended to:
- simplify energy bills so households and small business owners can better understand and manage their energy usage and costs,
- find a better energy deal, thereby driving improvements in competition.
The Interim Report, released in September, presented results from 6 survey experiments involving over 14,000 Australians. The Final Report expands on the Interim Report by adding in survey results, insights from qualitative research, and additional analysis of the survey experiments.
BETA’s research focused on 3 questions:
- Bill content: What is the priority content for inclusion on the bill?
- Bill simplification: How do we reduce information overload in bills?
- Bill comprehension: How do we maximise comprehension of bill content?
Read more about the results of BETA’s research in the Final Report.