Balancing Act

Investigating how much gas network spending could be avoided and diverted to assist households to move away from fossil fuels by electrifying their homes.

While gas is widely used in Australian homes, phasing it out is essential to meet our climate targets. It is likely that gas networks will shrink and eventually become largely redundant as households switch to electric-only. This presents opportunities to reduce energy stress as well as slowing clmate change – but it requires action. If we do not implement fair policies and change the energy rules, which are premised on gas networks growing, the transition risks being inequitable and inefficient, with the costs potentially borne by disadvantaged households.

Balancing Act developed a framework for gas network pruning and analysed what information required to apply the framework is available. It then tested a hypothetical pruning proposal in a real location to develop developed a framework to assess proposals to shrink the gas network through electrification, called strategic decommissioning or network pruning.

Balancing Act is a project led by the Brotherhood of St. Laurence (BSL), with commissioned research by Energeia and researchers from the Life Course Centre at the University of Melbourne, and funded by Energy Consumers Australia (ECA). Read Energeia’s economic analysis for the project . The social research report is available at the Life Course Centre’s Equitable Transitions Away from Gas page . [DB1] [AB2] [DB3]

For more information about the research and evaluation, please contact David Bryant dbryant@bsl.org.au