The Charge Up! project, funded by the Department of Energy and Climate through the Enable Grants Program, aims to improve the accessibility of the information households need to understand their energy use, and to support the community services sector to ensure this information reaches Queensland’s most vulnerable households.

While access to energy services is a basic human need, many households struggle to afford the cost of energy, understand their energy use and navigate energy matters. This is particularly true for low income and vulnerable households.   

Community service organisations work every day to meet the needs of vulnerable households and support their navigation of various issues. Increasingly, this includes cost of living issues, including accessing concessions and navigating hardship programs. The complexity of the energy system and the accessibility of information available to families is often a barrier to them utilising the supports available and taking up simple measures that would increase the affordability of their energy bills.   

QCOSS has vested interest in supporting the community service sector to better service vulnerable households and to ensure they have the information they need to navigate the energy system and afford energy costs.   

QCOSS is partnering with Neighbourhood Centres Queensland to deliver the project. Neighbourhood Centres Queensland will activate their network of 149 place-based, community-led organisations across Queensland to identify key regional organisational champions and support their involvement in the project.   

With over 2 million visits from Queenslanders each year, neighbourhood centres are well-placed to provide feedback and insights into the needs and challenges of communities, with high levels of community trust and engagement.   

As a soft-entry point into the broader social services sector, neighbourhood centres have many existing programs that can promote the resources that will be developed as a result of this project. They also lead collaborative networks across regions where they can share this information with other organisations to further distribute key information.   

This project seeks to both to improve the accessibility of the information households need to understand their energy use and the energy system, and support the community services sector to ensure this information reaches Queensland’s most vulnerable households.