EnergyAustralia is a large Australian electricity supplier and retailer. A state government enterprise of the Government of New South Wales, it is primarily focussed on supplying the Sydney, Newcastle and Central Coast areas of New South Wales.
EnergyAustralia has origins over 100 years old, and was formed after a merger in 1996 between Orion Energy (formerly Shortland Electricity and Shortland Country Council) and Sydney Electricity (formerly Sydney County Council, Mackellar County Council and St George County Council).
The company, until relatively recently had a price-regulated monopoly for the supply of electricity to its supply area. The residential energy market was deregulated in 1997 and full retail contestability introduced in 2002. EnergyAustralia now faces competition from alternative retailers in the private sector such as Origin Energy and AGL. EnergyAustralia also increasingly conducts electricity retailing outside of New South Wales, with the introduction of full retail contestability in South Australia, Victoria and Queensland. Western Australia is yet to be de-regulated and scheduled to be in 2010.
EnergyAustralia owns an electricity distribution network in addition to its retail activities. The electricity distribution network covers most of the eastern parts of Sydney, Central Coast and Hunter regions, with the Integral Energy distribution network covering most parts of Western Sydney.
EnergyAustralia also offers customers the choice of renewable green power which produces no green house gas emissions and is accredited by the National GreenPower Accreditation Program. However (as with many other Australian electricity retailers) EnergyAustralia provides only 10% accredited GreenPower for most of their 'renewable green power' options. As such, they have been rated poorly by the independent watchdog organisation Green Electricity Watch.