More people are having their electricity disconnected and are struggling to pay bills in Western Australia than anywhere else in the country.
The grim situation facing the state's electricity customers is revealed in the Economic Regulation Authority's 2016/17 report.
The data applies to the 12 months before Treasurer Ben Wyatt introduced a 10.9 per cent, or $169, hike in the fixed charge for electricity in July, along with rises in water and sewerage bills, sparking further worries for struggling consumers.
The number of residential electricity disconnections shot up by more than 63 per cent from 9,774 in 2015/16 to 15,935 in 2016/17.
It's the highest number of disconnections reported by state-owned Synergy since the ERA began reporting in 2007.
"Western Australia had the highest disconnection rate for residential electricity customers (1.60 per 100 customers) and residential gas customers (2.41 per 100 customers)," the ERA report said.
"Prior to 2016-17, Western Australian retailers had the lowest electricity disconnection rate."
Business electricity disconnections were also up, by 14.2 per cent to 885.
Those figures are mirrored by a six-year high in the number of residential electricity and gas customers placed on an instalment plan or granted more time to pay a bill.
There were 64,219 residential electricity customers on instalment plans last year, up from 48,057, while gas customers climbed from 15,833 in 2015/16 to 17,054.
More than 33,000 electricity customers and 25,000 gas customers additionally owed debts to their retailers, including an average of $596 for electricity customers on the government's hardship utility grant scheme.
Access to the HUGS scheme, which provides financial help to people struggling to pay their bills, was tightened last month making many people ineligible.
That was driven by the cash-strapped government shelling out $15.6 million of the HUGS $20 million budget in the first five months of the year, meaning it will have to be topped up.
Shadow Treasurer Dean Nalder criticised Treasurer Ben Wyatt, saying he was showing a "callous disregard" for families experiencing financial hardship, while the former Liberal-led Government kept its last electricity price rise to a modest three per cent.
The McGowan government had hiked bills and made getting financial assistance harder by forcing struggling households to wait six months before receiving hardship payments, he said.
