Red Energy cut off my supply, what are my options?

A missed payment does not give a retailer free rein to disconnect on the spot. Red Energy is required under the National Energy Retail Rules to follow a set process first: warn that the account is overdue, offer a payment plan or hardship assistance, and provide proper notice before supply is actually cut. If you never received a payment plan offer, or the notice period was skipped, the disconnection itself becomes the thing to challenge, separately from whatever the original bill dispute was about.

It matters what was happening at the time of disconnection. If you had already engaged with Red Energy, for example by proposing to pay in instalments, or if the amount owing was genuinely under dispute rather than simply unpaid, cutting the supply off in that window is difficult for a retailer to defend. Households with registered life-support needs sit outside all of this: they should not be disconnected for non-payment at all.

Ask Red Energy in writing for the complete record: every notice it sent before disconnecting, whether a payment plan was offered, and its stated reason for cutting supply. If the sequence was not followed properly, push for immediate free reconnection and compensation for the actual disruption caused. If Red Energy is slow to fix it, your state energy ombudsman, EWON, EWOV or EWOQ, can direct urgent reconnection and investigate compensation, free of charge.