Going All-Electric: The Saving Is in Cutting Gas Entirely

The gas bill most people misread

Open a low-usage gas bill in summer and look closely. A household that only uses gas for cooking might burn a few dollars of gas a quarter, yet the bill still runs to a hundred dollars or more. The difference is the daily supply charge, levied every day of the quarter just for being connected. On a light gas account, the standing charge can dwarf the actual gas you use.

That single fact rewires the electrification decision. If most of your gas bill is a fixed connection fee, then cutting gas usage barely moves the bill. The only way to make that fixed cost disappear is to remove the connection, and you can only do that when nothing in the house still runs on gas.

Why the usual advice backfires

Most guides treat electrification as a shopping list: replace the gas cooktop, swap the gas heater, upgrade the hot water. Each swap is presented as a saving. For a light gas user, several of those swaps save almost nothing, because the appliance you replaced was barely using gas. You spend money to remove usage that was never the cost.

The advice misses the structure of the bill. It optimises usage when the dominant cost is the fixed charge. Done one appliance at a time, electrification can leave you running two energy systems, paying two supply charges, and wondering why your combined bill went up.

How the economics actually work

The fixed charge dominates light users

A gas connection has a standing charge that is the same for a heavy user and a light one. For a heavy user heating a large home all winter, the charge is a small slice of a big bill. For a cooking-only household, it can be the majority of the bill. The lighter your gas use, the more of your bill is pure connection cost, and the more you have to gain by disconnecting.

Efficiency changes the running cost

Electricity costs more per unit than gas, so a like-for-like swap can look bad on paper. The thing that flips it is efficiency. A heat pump, whether for hot water or for heating, moves heat rather than generating it, delivering several units of warmth per unit of electricity. That multiplier is what lets efficient electric appliances undercut gas on running cost despite the higher rate.

The disconnection threshold

The saving becomes real at one specific moment: when the last gas appliance is gone and you can abolish the connection. Before that point you are paying for two systems. After it, the entire daily supply charge falls off the bill permanently. Electrification is therefore an all-or-nothing play for the fixed cost, even if you stage the appliances over time.

What your gas connection costs to keep

Enter your gas supply charge and the gas you actually use to see how much of your bill is the connection itself, the part that only disappears if you go fully electric. The worked example below uses the defaults.

Worked example: a 90 c/day supply charge is about $329/year in fixed cost. If you only use $120 of gas a year, the connection is roughly 73% of your gas bill, and only full disconnection removes it.

How households get the timing wrong

The common path is to electrify the appliance that fails first, often the hot-water system, while keeping the gas cooktop because it still works. That decision is understandable and it is also where the saving leaks away. You have spent on a new electric system but kept the gas connection alive for one appliance, so the standing charge survives and your bills now span two retailers' supply charges.

The better mental model is to plan the endpoint first. Decide that the home will be fully electric, then sequence the replacements toward that goal, so the gas disconnection, and the saving, actually happens rather than being deferred indefinitely by one stubborn appliance.

The insider detail: the cooktop is the gatekeeper

In a lot of homes the single appliance standing between the household and gas disconnection is the cooktop, often the cheapest gas appliance to replace. People agonise over the big-ticket hot water and heating decisions and leave the small one in place, not realising it is the one keeping the entire standing charge alive. An induction cooktop is frequently the lowest-cost move that unlocks the largest recurring saving, because it removes the last reason to keep paying for a gas connection.

What to actually do

Start by reading your gas bill for the supply charge, not the usage, and work out what share of your bill the connection represents. If it is the majority, your saving is in disconnection, not efficiency tweaks. Plan for a fully electric home, prioritise efficient heat-pump appliances for hot water and heating, and treat the cooktop as the final gatekeeper to remove.

Check your state's incentives before you buy, especially in Victoria, where rebates can materially cut the upfront cost. And once you are all-electric, your single bill will be larger on the electricity side, so compare your electricity plan against the reference price to make sure the consolidated bill is on a competitive rate.

Why this matters now

Gas network costs are spread across a shrinking pool of connected households, which puts upward pressure on the very supply charge that already dominates light users' bills. As more homes electrify, the fixed cost of staying connected to gas is likely to rise for those who remain. That makes the disconnection threshold not just a saving today, but a hedge against a charge that is structurally heading the wrong way.