WA households will be denied indefinitely the right to choose where they buy their electricity as the McGowan Government backs away from plans to end Synergy’s long-standing monopoly.

It is understood that Energy Minister Ben Wyatt has quietly shelved plans which would have resulted in the electricity market for residential and small business customers thrown open to competition for the first time.

Mr Wyatt said last year he wanted to end State-owned power provider Synergy’s State-imposed stranglehold of the market and introduce so-called full retail contestability “sooner rather than later”.

However, energy insiders say the Government has gone cold on the idea in the face of internal opposition from unions, the parlous state of WA’s finances and questions about the effectiveness of competition in the Eastern States’ energy market.

Electricity prices have rocketed on the east coast despite years and sometimes decades of retail competition.

Tony Wood, an energy expert at the Grattan Institute think tank, said there were legitimate concerns about whether consumers were benefiting from competition in the Eastern States. According to Mr Wood, high gas prices were exacerbating the situation but there was a view that market power was concentrated too heavily in the hands of a few privately owned companies.

He said it might make more sense for WA to keep Synergy as a State-owned monopoly and look to privatise poles and wires business Western Power instead.

Mr Wyatt denied the Government had given up on FRC but pointed out the troubles in the east coast energy market while questioning whether retail competition “has delivered the benefits that it is intended to deliver”.

Instead, he suggested the Government could look at lowering the threshold at which companies could compete with Synergy in the context of “broader industry reforms”.