Making sense of the energy market: Supporting energy justice and household resilience in culturally and linguistically diverse communities

Australia’s energy transition is reshaping the relationship between households and electricity markets. As dynamic pricing, distributed energy resources, and increasingly complex retail products become more widespread, households are expected to make decisions that directly affect their energy costs and participation in the transition. While these developments create new opportunities, they also risk reinforcing existing inequalities. For culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, barriers such as limited energy literacy, language differences, unfamiliarity with market institutions, and unequal access to trusted information can reduce their capacity to engage with the energy market on equal terms. These informational inequalities raise important questions of energy justice, consumer empowerment, and household resilience. This paper presents the development of an analytics-based decision-support tool designed to improve equitable participation in Australia’s evolving electricity market. Rather than viewing household energy decisions as purely technical or economic, the project adopts an energy justice perspective, recognising that access to understandable information and meaningful choices is a critical component of a fair and inclusive energy transition. The research is informed by behavioural analysis and community co-design workshops with CALD households, which explored how people interpret electricity bills, compare retail offers, understand tariffs, and make everyday energy decisions. The findings reveal that many households experience choice overload, uncertainty about retailer options and market actors, and limited awareness of the relative impact of different electricity-consuming activities. Participants commonly focused on highly visible but relatively low-impact energy-saving actions while overlooking the significant influence of appliance scheduling and tariff structures on household electricity costs. Drawing on these insights, the project developed an interactive decision-support platform that combines behavioural insights with data analytics and optimisation. The tool enables households to explore their energy consumption patterns, understand the key drivers of their electricity bills, compare available electricity plans, and identify practical opportunities to reduce costs while respecting household routines and preferences. Recommendations are designed to be socially feasible and culturally appropriate, recognising that household decisions are shaped by work schedules, caregiving responsibilities, and everyday practices rather than economic considerations alone. The paper argues that improving household access to clear, trusted, and actionable energy information is an important but often overlooked dimension of energy justice. By strengthening households’ capacity to navigate increasingly complex electricity markets, the project contributes to more equitable participation in the benefits of the energy transition while enhancing households’ resilience to rising energy costs. The study demonstrates how community-informed digital decision-support tools can complement broader policy efforts to ensure that the transition to a low-carbon energy system is not only technically effective but also socially inclusive and just.