“I feel really disappointed (about the tipped price rise), but I feel for the people who live in the older houses,” Mrs Rodda said.

“That is one of the reasons we moved from our Urana Street house; we were paying $2000 over winter just to heat an older house.”

Energy expert Danny Price this week has been quoted in national media predicting retail electricity price rises by as much as 30 per cent by June.

It’s a slug that Charles Sturt University sociology and environmental education lecturer, Dr Helen Masterman-Smith, says will hit the poor the hardest.

She says many people are already in energy crisis.

“We are already seeing people on aged and disability pensions accumulating electricity bills of $3000 and $4000 which they will never be able to pay off,” Dr Masterman Smith said.

“An older resident told me that it’s too expensive to stay at home these days.

“She said many people go to shopping centres and public places because of the high cost of heating and cooling.”

Dr Masterman-Smith is leading a project to deliver financial assistance and energy advice to lower income families in the Lavington and North Albury areas.

Participants will be provided with $300 worth of energy efficient items and advice on how to further reduce their energy bills.

The project team will also ask low income families for tips on how they save on energy costs.

“Low income families are the most frugal and they have a lot of wisdom,” Dr Masterman-Smith said.

St Vincent de Paul said it was expecting a dramatic increase in the number of requests for help this winter as a consequence of skyrocketing electricity charges.

“The anticipated energy price surge will hit the hip pockets of low and middle income earners really badly,” said the charity’s state president, Denis Walsh.

The jump in energy charges has been blamed on government bungling, a shortage of electricity generation and an undersupply of gas to the domestic market because of massive sales overseas.