We held several focus groups for a select group of small business customers in October and November, 2023. The group of thirteen randomly selected participants from Greater Sydney, met to discuss their needs regarding future gas usage.

Small businesses play a vital role in the NSW economy and are essential for Jemena to consult with as part of the price reset. According to the NSW Government, small businesses account for 98% of all NSW businesses and small business owners are a group with specific needs.

Participants represented a range of sectors, including:

• hospitality
• accommodation
• manufacturing
• retail
• and the arts sector.

We also had observers attend from our Consumer Challenge Panel and the AER (Australian Energy Regulator).

In the groups, we presented the specific response areas within the 2025-30 Access Arrangement for their consideration, initial thoughts and questions. We then asked them questions about the response areas that we had taken Customer Forum participants through.

After they gave their thoughts via menti, we shared the views of our residential customers from Customer Forum Seven on these response areas.

They voted as follows:

• more significant support for renewable gas than that of residential customers, given their reliance on gas as a fuel source – 50% supported expediting this
• affordability, fairness and pricing remain a key concern given rising energy costs
• supporting accelerating capital recovery – 58% supported $300 million
• support for a targeted approach to asset management and rehabilitation of older assets – 100% agreement on this
• support for shared costs for new connections – 50% supported the medium option of sharing costs
• a willingness for permanent disconnections costs to be shared across the customer base – 43% supported a 50/50 split of the costs associated with this.

When thinking about the future of gas, our small business customers were highly engaged and some of their comments include:

• “It is our responsibility to leave this world in a better condition.”
• (speaking about renewable gas) “As long as you abide by the rules and you’re within the rules, you can really get out there, guns blazing I think.”
• “We’ve been talking about cost and if you were to go gas versus electricity. If it was a cost of $500, I probably wouldn’t bother, but if it gets to $1,000, I would consider switching (to electricity).”
• “I just wanted to thank you and your colleagues personally for the two very interesting and informative sessions on the future of gas.”

Thank you so much to everyone who attended, and we will share your views in our last Customer Forum to be held in March 2024 where we seek to ensure our draft 2025-2031 plan aligns with our customers thoughts and views.