A new support package was announced by energy network businesses this week, as Ballarat heads into the colder months.

It comes as thousands of people have lost their jobs or had their income cut as a result of restrictions in place to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Centacare chief executive Tony Fitzgerald said electricity costs for people in financial hardship meant they often elected not to use heating in winter to reduce their bills.

"That issue has been around for a while because of the fairly substantial increases that we have been forced to endure as electricity prices have risen," he said.

"It has become a tool for people to manage their electricity costs to not use heating or hardly have it on at all.

"If you add in the COVID-19 impact on top of that, you have got more people at home because they are either working from home or they are in isolation under guidelines."

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Mr Fitzgerald it was likely residents would have tough decisions to make on using heating as they spend more time at home, potentially not going to work or shopping centres where heating was available.

"If the electricity companies are looking at some methods of relief I think that is a great idea, if they are prepared to contribute to the 'we are all in this together' scenario, by providing relief to people as we go into winter and the demands for heating increase substantially," he said.

Powercore is working with electricity retailers to support residential customers to go on payment plans or hardship arrangements for network charges from April 1 to June 30, 2020.

Network charges will be rebated for small business customers experiencing financial stress and who have temporarily ceased trading as a result of the pandemic. This applies for network charges from April 1 to June 30, 2020.

In other support programs, Powercor is waiving disconnection and re-connection fees for small businesses that have temporarily ceased trading. This means they will not pay the daily supply charges.

Small businesses that consume less than 40MWh per annum and use less than 25 per cent of their historical average consumption during the April to June period will be eligible.

Small businesses do not need to do anything to receive the rebate. It will be automatically administered through their existing electricity retailer.

The Australian Energy Council said in a statement there would be no disconnections for affected customers receiving hardship assistance if they are unable to afford their energy bills.

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