The NSW Office of Energy and Climate Change is reforming the Energy Accounts Payment Assistance (EAPA) scheme and is publicly consulting on the planned changes.

For over 30 years, EAPA has been helping people experiencing difficulty paying their energy bills due to short-term financial hardship, a crisis or emergency (such as loss of income, unexpected costs or natural disaster), to stay connected to essential energy services.

The NSW Office of Energy and Climate Change (OECC) has reviewed the EAPA scheme to ensure it is effective and continues to deliver the intended outcomes for customers. As part of this review, OECC conducted customer research and consulted with a wide range of stakeholders, including energy retailers, consumer groups and non-government organisations. Through this process we identified areas for potential reform.

We have summarised our findings, outlined the potential reforms and included consultation questions to seek your input. You can also refer to the EAPA Public Consultation Paper on proposed reforms for further information.

Tell us what you think

To provide your feedback, complete the survey or upload a submission. All submissions will be made publicly available unless you specifically request otherwise.

Submissions close at 11:59 pm (AEDT) on Wednesday 13 December 2023.

Privacy collection notice

Have your say consultations are run by the NSW Department of Customer Service (McKell Building, 2-4 Rawson Place, Haymarket NSW 2000).

We are interested in hearing from the community and will use the information we collect from you to help develop the programs and services that NSW Government provides.

We are collecting only minimal personal information from you. We may collect basic information like your name and contact details, if you choose to provide them. You may provide some personal information in response to questions that we ask you. For example, we may ask you about your experiences or opinions about a particular topic.

Having your say is voluntary and you are not legally required to provide any personal information to us. For some consultations, though, you will not be able to have your say unless you agree to include your personal information.

If you do provide personal information to us, you have a right to access it, and can ask us to correct it if it is wrong.

We may share personal information you provide with other parts of the Department of Customer Service (for example, with our Data Analytics Centre) so that we can conduct analysis across all consultations and refine our engagement methodology.

Where we conduct a consultation with or on behalf of a partner agency, we would usually share the information that we collect with that agency. In this instance, we are running this consultation with:

• NSW Treasury (Office of Energy and Climate Change)

For privacy information about your use of the NSW Government website generally, please see the NSW Government’s website privacy statement.

You can contact our Privacy Coordinator by calling 13 77 88 or by emailing Privacy@customerservice.nsw.gov.au.