More than 1,100 households at Heathcote, Maldon, Marong, Swan Hill, Kerang, Nathalia, Robinvale, Terang, Lakes Entrance and Orbost will be affected.<\/p>\n
Just spent $40,000 on gas<\/p>\n
John Maynard and his wife Janelle run a cafe and events venue at Nathalia in northern Victoria and last year spent $40,000 installing natural gas during a renovation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
John and Janelle Maynard opened Broken Willow restaurant just over a year ago (Supplied: John Maynard)<\/p>\n
He said his business relied on gas for heating, cooking and hot water.<\/p>\n
Mr Maynard heard about the Solstice gas switch-off after the ABC contacted him last week.<\/p>\n
“If I’ve got to put electricity in, I’ve got to then spend probably another $20,000, plus to get my whole wall pulled out and put electricity into my wall, which I don’t have at the moment to do,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Maynard said he also worried that if he switched to bottle gas, it might run out during a large function.<\/p>\n
“We’d be in a lot of trouble,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
John Maynard says he installed a natural gas connection a year ago. (Supplied: John Maynard)<\/p>\n
Solstice Energy said it would support every household and business affected by the gas cuts, providing $1,000 up-front payments, gas appliance subsidies, and support to switch to bottled gas.<\/p>\n
Those who opt to convert their homes to electricity are advised to apply for Victorian government rebates.<\/p>\n
A Victorian government spokesperson said it was providing up to thousands of dollars in discounts for electric appliances through the Solar Homes and Victorian Energy Upgrades programs.<\/p>\n
But Mr Maynard said that was not enough.<\/p>\n
“A lot of small restaurants and businesses around the area are struggling as it is and we need any help we can get,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Maynard said he was already paying $1,500 to $3,000 a month on gas and he would lose money by closing his business to complete works for the transition.<\/p>\n
“We’d have to be shut down for I reckon two or three weeks just to change everything over,” he said.<\/p>\n
Gas switch off ‘poorly planned’<\/p>\n
The Victorian government launched the gas substitution road map in 2022 to drive down gas usage across the state.<\/p>\n
Victoria Energy Policy Centre head Professor Bruce Mountain said it represented a drastic change in direction, given previous Victorian government policy encouraged households to use gas.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bruce Mountain says households should consider switching from natural gas. (ABC News: Peter Garnish)<\/p>\n
“Households have invested. As a consequence, they have been locked into those choices,” he said.<\/p>\n
Professor Mountain said he believed Victorians should consider switching away from natural gas, as more suppliers could begin turning off supply.<\/p>\n
“Gas is becoming more scarce, and as consumers use less, the viability of lines becomes even harder to sustain, and so they are progressively cut off,” he said.<\/p>\n
St Vincent de Paul national energy director Gavin Dufty said the gas cuts in regional Victoria had been poorly planned.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Gavin Dufty says it is a “huge ask” for home owners to make the costly conversion. (ABC News: Clint Jasper)<\/p>\n
“The lack of coordination between Solstice and the Victorian government to provide long-term, fit-for-purpose solutions for these communities is a glaring, glaring omission,” he said.<\/p>\n
“You’ve got these two different options to go to LPG \u2014 back to the future \u2014 or electrify.<\/p>\n
“The big issue here is, they’re only giving people a year and a half to make what is quite a huge decision for these households.<\/p>\n
“In the next 20 years, we may see more gas cuts, depending on the size of the communities on the reticulated gas network and government policy.<\/p>\n
“If you’re on the gas network at the moment, when your appliance fails and all that, do consider alternatives.”<\/p>\n
‘Better off in the long run’<\/p>\n
Solstice Energy chief executive Phaedra Deckart said switching from piped gas to bottled gas or electricity would be “better for customers in the long run”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Phaedra Deckart says customers will be better off switching to bottled gas or electricity. (Supplied: Solstice Energy)<\/p>\n
“The basis upon which the network was built assumed a much larger demand and a much greater number of customers,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We have tried everything to make this network viable, however, it is a very high-cost network to truck compressed natural gas to each of these regional towns, and ultimately, costs are going up for customers.”<\/p>\n
Solstice Energy announced a 50 per cent price increase to the 10 impacted towns last Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Customers had already been hit with an 80 per cent increase in January 2023.<\/p>\n
Ms Deckart said Solstice would need to continue raising prices every year for its compressed gas service to remain viable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Victorian government is being urged to subsidise regional Victorians who must convert their homes and businesses to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,50864,50866,99,50868,19161,2572,11053,50867,38415,50865,50869],"class_list":{"0":"post-63597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-bottled-gas","11":"tag-bruce-mountain","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-compressed-gas-network-switch-off","14":"tag-electricity","15":"tag-energy","16":"tag-gas","17":"tag-lpg","18":"tag-solstice-energy","19":"tag-st-vincent-de-paul","20":"tag-switching-from-gas-to-electricity"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}