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Red Energy review

Red Energy is a large electricity retailer in Australia. Here's what you need to know before deciding whether to switch to Red Energy.

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CHOICE staff
CHOICE staff
Last updated: 09 February 2023

Red Energy sells electricity to over 557,000 households, or over 5% of Australia's residential customers, according to 2021–22 figures. Red Energy joined the Australian market in 2004 and is 100% owned by Snowy Hydro.

Red Energy is privately owned by Snowy Hydro. Its head office is in East Richmond, Victoria while its call centre is in Melbourne. It supplies electricity and gas to all states and territories except Tasmania, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Along with Red Energy, Lumo Energy is also owned by Snowy Hydro. Snowy Hydro continues to be a Corporations Act company with an Independent Board of Directors.

Contact details for Red Energy

redenergy.com.au

13 18 06

Which states does Red Energy supply?

CHOICE Expert Rating on Red Energy

How we get our results

CHOICE verdict on Red Energy

Environmental

  • Red Energy owns mostly renewable assets (via Snowy Hydro) with emissions intensity cost close to zero.
  • Snowy Hydro owns nine hydro stations and renewable energy contracts.
  • It offers several products including solar feed in tariffs and a renewable matching promise (GreenPower) – for every unit of electricity you buy from Red Energy, parent company Snowy Hydro will match it by generating one unit of electricity from a renewable source.
  • Its cost for GreenPower is lower than average.
  • But Snowy Hydro also owns three gas-fired power stations (with a fourth in development) and diesel engine peaking generation.
  • Red Energy has energy efficiency information on its website, but this should be made more accessible.

Customer service

  • 15,808 (2.8%) of Red Energy's customers lodged complaints against the company in 2021–22.
  • 36% of calls made to Red Energy are answered within 30 seconds. 
  • The average wait time for a call is 272 seconds, a significant increase over the 68 second wait time in 2020–21.
  • 16.6% of callers hang up before their call is answered.

Red Energy's energy sources

We could not find a clear breakdown of Red Energy's energy sources for 2020-21. The figures below are from our 2019-20 survey.
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Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.