We have approved the maximum prices two Victorian water businesses, Goulburn-Murray Water and Greater Western Water, may apply from 1 July 2024.
Water price review 2024
Overview
We have completed our review
We released our final decisions on the maximum prices to apply for Goulburn-Murray Water and Greater Western Water customers from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2028.
How this affects you
Greater Western Water provides water and sewerage services to residential and business customers in metropolitan Melbourne.
Goulburn-Murray Water provides water and drainage infrastructure services to rural customers in northern Victoria.
Our determination impacts how much customers will pay for the services they receive from their water business, and the key service outcomes they can expect for the period from 1 July 2024.
Our review and consultation process
We reviewed submissions from Goulburn-Murray Water and Greater Western Water on their proposed prices and key service outcomes to apply from 1 July 2024.
The two water businesses submitted their proposals on 29 September 2023.
The proposals were assessed against a legal framework established by the Victorian Government and set out in the Water Industry Regulatory Order, and the commission’s PREMO pricing framework.
PREMO includes incentives for each water business to put forward its best offer to customers and deliver the outcomes its customers value most.
This review was the second round under PREMO for Greater Western Water, where its price submission demonstrated how it is building on its previous proposals to deliver great value to its customers.
This was the first review under PREMO for Goulburn-Murray Water.
We sought feedback from customers and stakeholders on the water businesses' proposals and on our draft decisions, to inform our decision-making process.
We held two separate public forums and received 24 submissions from a range of stakeholders via Engage Victoria and email.
Recordings of both forums, the public submissions and an engagement summary are available on the below pages for each water business. Note: two submissions were marked confidential, and have not been published in accordance with our Submissions Policy.
Following consultation, we issued a determination that sets the maximum prices that each water business may charge its customers from 1 July 2024.
We released the final decisions on 18 June 2024.
View our final decisions
Learn more about water price regulation
Read about how water bills are calculated and how we regulate the water sector
Got questions?
Contact us for more information.
Resources
Public engagement summaries
Guidance to water businesses
We released our guidance to Goulburn-Murray Water and Greater Western Water in September 2022, which set out the information each business was required to provide us in its price submission. We also explained our approach and methodology to assessing water businesses' price submissions and making a price determination.
13 September 2022
Note: This guidance incorporates amendments to section 3.13.1 made on 21 August 2023 to update the approach to estimating expected inflation to calculate the real cost of debt.
(pdf, 911.19 KB)
Sensitive and appropriate engagement with consumers experiencing vulnerability
We prepared this document to support water businesses design engagement for their 2024 water price review submissions that is universal, inclusive and appropriate for all consumers, including those experiencing vulnerability.