About Essential Energy
Essential Energy builds, operates and maintains one of Australia’s largest electricity distribution networks, providing a vital service to more than 890,000 customers across regional, rural and remote communities.
Delivering safe and reliable electricity for communities is the core of what we do. We focus on employee, contractor and community safety, as well as the reliability, security and cost efficiency of the network. We keep our customers’ network charges as low as possible while delivering an acceptable return on capital employed to our shareholders.
As the energy sector transitions to more renewable energy generation, we too are transforming. Through innovation and technology, we are actively providing benefits to our customers and communities by supporting the energy transition and enabling connections of renewable energy to the network. We are also training the workforce of tomorrow so our people can inspire and enable the network of the future.
The electricity poles and wires that line our streets and roads deliver the energy that powers the homes, hospitals, schools and businesses that form our communities. This vital infrastructure can also allow for communities to generate, share and store their own electricity.
Our network area covers 95 per cent of NSW and parts of southern Queensland, traversing 737,000 square kilometres of diverse landscape from the desert to the coast, and alpine to sub-tropical.
Building the network of the future will empower communities to be a part of the transition and can drive economic growth in regional, rural and remote NSW.
The location of our network shapes our customer base and how we service them. We have about one-third the number of customers per kilometre of powerline compared with average customer density across the National Electricity Market, due to our network’s geographic spread and absence of large urban areas. This means we use more poles and wires to reach each customer, which increases service costs. Sparsely populated networks also present unique logistical and economic challenges to achieve reliability and service quality targets.
Our values inform our decisions and guide the way we work, including how we treat our customers and each other. Each of our employees is enabled and encouraged to uphold our values: make safety your own; be easy to do business with; make every dollar count; be courageous, shape the future; and be inclusive, supportive and honest.
Our vision
- Empowering communities to share and use energy for a better tomorrow
Our purpose
- To enable energy solutions that improve life
Our values
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Make safety your own -
Be easy to do business with -
Make every dollar count -
Be courageous, shape the future -
Be inclusive, supportive and honest
Our business objectives
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Continuous improvements in safety culture and performance -
Operate at industry best practice for efficiency, delivering best value for customers -
Deliver real reductions in customers’ distribution network charges -
Deliver a satisfactory return on capital employed -
Reduce the environmental impact of Essential Energy where it is efficient to do so
Key facts
- 890,000 electricity customers
- 4.6 electricity customers per km of powerline – the lowest customer density in the National Electricity Market
- 3,650 employees
- 359 Apprentices, trainees and graduates
- 95% of NSW and parts of southern Queensland
- 737,000km2 network area
- 183,000km of overhead powerlines
- 11,000km of underground powerlines
- 162,000km of overhead powerlines in designated bushfire zones
- 1,400,000 power poles
- 360 zone substations
Essential Water
Essential Water, part of our Assets and Operations division, services approximately 18,000 people in Far West NSW. Secure water supply is delivered to approximately 10,500 customers in Broken Hill, Menindee, Silverton and Sunset Strip, as well as rural customers. Reliable sewerage services are provided to approximately 9,700 customers in Broken Hill. The Essential Water network includes dams, reservoirs, pumping stations, treatment plants and pipelines.
Intium
Intium, a wholly owned commercial subsidiary of Essential Energy, was incorporated in January 2023, to provide innovative energy solutions that support Australia’s transition to net zero. Intium focuses on business-to-business customers across Australia that need innovative energy solutions, including businesses pursuing emerging and complex energy services.