Cash-strapped Wagga residents are leaving their homes unheated in a bid to avoid running up expensive winter power bills, according to charity volunteer.
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Peter Burgess, who has recently been elected as president of the Wagga Central Council of St Vincent de Paul, said there had been a high demand for the charity's help so far this winter, particularly in terms of demand for warm bedding.
Mr Burgess said the impact that high power prices were having on Wagga residents had been brought home to him during a series of house visits he made with a St Vincent de Paul colleague.
"It was about 5pm and cold, but at three homes in a row we went in and people were sitting there in the cold. The heaters were not turned on and the lights were off," he said. "I asked why they didn't turn the heater on and they said they wouldn't until it was really cold about 8pm.
"They were really aware that when they turned on those heaters, they would be using electricity.
"These were people on lower incomes who may also have been dealing with other issues as well. It was a real wake-up call."
In Wagga in the 2018-19 financial year, St Vincent de Paul helped 578 families with $297,417 in assistance to pay their electricity or gas bills, according to St Vincent de Paul's Wagga chief executive, Mike Riley.
In the 2017-18 financial year, 598 families received assistance totalling $305,547, Mr Riley said.
The average annual power bill in the Riverina is $3800 according to a 2018 St Vincent de Paul annual review.
Despite this cost, rural areas seem likely to miss out on price cuts which kicked in with the new financial year.
The cuts are expected after the Australian Energy Regulator reduced the amount that distributors Ausgrid, Essential Energy and Endeavour Energy can charge over a five-year period.
But the AER warned that prices in regional areas were still likely to increase by up to $100 a year.
New figures from the AER for the third quarter of the 2018-19 financial year show that the number of customers on hardship programs for electricity has increased by more than 4000 customers - or about six per cent - over the past year.
Unlike electricity customers, the number of gas customers on hardship programs remained steady nationally.
Nationally during that three-month period, there were 16,726 electricity disconnections and 2672 gas customers cut off, according to the AER's figures.
Householders' income spent on energy in Australia is surging, according to research commissioned by the Australian Council of Social Service and the Brotherhood of St Laurence.
The analysis, conducted by the Australian National University, investigated the burden of electricity and gas costs for a range of household types in Australia between 2008 and 2018.
The research found some of the lowest income households in Australia spend more than 10 per cent of their incomes on rising energy costs. Meanwhile, more affluent households spend significantly less of their income - just 1.5 per cent - on energy.
