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Victoria’s electricity market gives you the freedom to choose your energy retailer, while strong rules help protect customers and keep prices fair.
Market offers and network prices
What’s a market offer?
A market offer is an energy plan from a retailer with specific prices. It may include discounts or rewards to attract customers, as shown on comparison sites.
Compare energy plans
Retailers set their own prices, so it’s worth comparing offers at Victorian Energy Compare.
Networks and prices
Electricity network prices cover the cost of maintaining the poles and wires that distribute electricity across Victoria. These prices vary depending on your distribution network zone (for example, AusNet, CitiPower, Jemena, Powercor or United Energy. Each year, the Essential Services Commission (ESC) includes these network charges as part of the Victorian Default Offer (VDO).
For 2026–2031:
- daily supply charges range from around $1.19 (United Energy) to $1.38 (Powercor)
- usage charges vary depending on your tariff (flat/time-of-use).
The Victorian Default Offer
The Victorian Default Offer (VDO) is a reasonable electricity price set by Victoria’s independent energy regulator, the Essential Services Commission (ESC). To make it easier for households to compare prices, all energy retailers must offer a basic, standard plan that aligns with a reference price. In Victoria, this is known as the VDO.
What the VDO does
- operates as a trusted safety net for customers unwilling or unable to engage in the energy retail market
- is a maximum electricity price for most embedded network customers
- requires retailers, when advertising other offers, to state how they compare to the VDO. This gives Victorians a benchmark to compare electricity prices when shopping around for a new offer.
The 2026-27 VDO
The price for electricity under the VDO will be 5% (or around $84) cheaper in 2026–2027 than in 2025–26.
The 2026–27 VDO saves Victorians an average of $444 compared with the 2026–27 Default Market Offer (DMO), a similar offer that applies in South Australia, New South Wales and south-east Queensland.
When the VDO is set
VDO and DMO prices are confirmed by regulators at the end of May and run from 1 July to 30 June each year.
Consumer protections for households
Victoria has rules to help keep energy bills fair, transparent and easier to plan for.
Energy price protections: helping keep your bills predictable
Since 1 July 2020, Victoria has had strong rules to protect households and small businesses from unexpected increases in electricity prices.
Under these rules, energy retailers can only change their prices once a year. They must clearly tell you when a change is coming and what it means for your bill. For most customers, any price update happens about a month after network costs change, usually around 1 August each year. If you’re on a fixed-price contract, your price only changes when your fixed period ends.
A small number of gas customers have not engaged in the market for a lower-priced offer and are instead on a gas standing offer. Retailers may change the price of a gas standing offer no more than once every 6 months, typically in January and July each year.
These protections help make energy bills fairer, more transparent, and easier to plan for.
Energy Retail Code of Practice
New rules will help lower prices for those most in need.
The Energy Retail Code of Practice (ERCoP) sets the rules all energy retailers in Victoria must follow when selling electricity and gas. These rules help keep things fair and ensure energy companies do the right thing.
Keep an eye on your energy bills and reach out to your retailer if something doesn’t look right or if you’d like to check you’re on their best offer.
Victoria’s independent energy regulator, the Essential Services Commission (ESC), is strengthening these rules to give households better protection and easier access to lower-priced energy deals.
New laws will roll out in 3 stages during 2026.
What’s changing?
From 1 February 2026
- Better information so customers know they can get help from independent dispute resolution services if things go wrong.
From 1 July 2026
- New protections for customers stuck on older, higher-priced energy contracts (more than 4 years old).
- Improvements to make sure energy concessions are applied correctly on bills.
- Extended protections for people on legacy contracts (signed before 1 July 2020).
From 1 October 2026
- Automatic switching to the retailer’s best offer for customers experiencing payment difficulty.
- Increasing the minimum amount of debt before disconnection can occur – from $300 to $1,000 – giving households more breathing room.
- Better access to cheaper energy offers.
- Easier processes to switch to the retailer’s best offer.
Support when you need it most
Many Victorian households are feeling cost pressures, and even with careful budgeting, it can still be difficult to stay on top of bills. Financial hardship can happen to anyone, at any time.
Victoria’s Payment Difficulty Framework provides strong consumer protections for households experiencing energy hardship. Introduced in 2019 to address growing energy debt and disconnections, the Framework helps ensure energy companies do the right thing when you’re struggling.
More Victorians are now seeking support under the Framework, and many are making tough choices, such as cutting back on food, medicine or heating, to keep up with energy costs.
Under the Framework, energy retailers must provide assistance if you are anticipating or experiencing difficulty paying your energy bills. If you are struggling, contact your retailer early. Support is available, and you are entitled to it.
Having trouble paying your energy bills? You have rights
If you are struggling to pay your energy bill, contact your retailer early. Support is available, and you are entitled to it.
Disconnection protections
If you are having trouble with your energy bills, strong rules are in place to protect you from being disconnected. These rules help keep things fair and make sure energy companies do the right thing.
Under Victoria’s energy rules, there are guidelines about when and how you can be disconnected.
You can’t be disconnected:
- during a protected period, such as a weekend or a public holiday
- if you are receiving bill assistance
- if you have kept in contact with your energy company about your situation and your debt is less than $1,000 from October 2026.
Multiple written notices must be given before a disconnection can occur.
Extra protections for life support customers
Victorians who rely on life support equipment have additional, important safeguards:
- If your household has registered life support equipment, your electricity cannot be disconnected for non-payment.
- For any planned outages, you may request your electricity distributor to provide you with longer notice periods before interrupting your supply.
- For unplanned outages there are protocols in place to ensure the safety of life support customers.
EWOV and the ESC: ensuring protections are enforced
The Energy and Water Ombudsman Victoria (EWOV) can help resolve most complaints about electricity and gas in Victoria. If you cannot resolve the problem with your energy company first, EWOV’s free complaints process recommends you:
- contact EWOV about the complaint
- EWOV will investigate and deliver an outcome
To make a complaint visit: start-a-complaint
The ESC makes sure energy companies follow the rules and acts if they don’t
The ESC is focused on regulating Victoria’s gas and electricity services in a way that is fair, transparent, efficient, and responsive to community needs.
The ESC’s 2025–26 compliance and enforcement focus includes:
- addressing practices that exacerbate cost-of-living pressures
- holding businesses accountable when they fail to provide consumers experiencing vulnerability with fair and equitable access to essential services
- deterring conduct that increases the likelihood and impact of harm to consumers affected by family violence
- addressing conduct that compromises market integrity
- focusing on conduct impacting Victoria’s First Nations people.
Learn more about the ESC's compliance and enforcement priorities.
Page last updated: 24/07/26