As part of an innovative new business model, Frasers Property has established Real Utilities, a licensed Australian energy retailer which provides energy to residents and businesses in Frasers-built communities.

Real Utilities owns and manages energy infrastructure within select Frasers Property developments and uses a combination of renewable energy, often generated through solar on the sites of its masterplanned communities, as well as certified carbon offsets to provide carbon neutral energy to its customers.

According to Frasers Property, the cost of energy to these customers is cheaper and the company is committed to providing a cheaper electricity rate than the published discount rates of the three biggest electricity retailers in the area, benchmarked twice a year. As at July 2018, the price of energy provided by Real Utilities at its first residential site in Sydney was 28 percent cheaper than the average standard tariff reported by the big three energy retailers, and below their published discount rates. 

"Real Utilities gives us the capacity to provide a real cost-of-living benefit to our customers and create a more robust and holistic suite of infrastructure and services for the people who live in our communities," says Paolo Bevilacqua, general manager of Real Utilities. 

As new Frasers Property communities reach completion in the coming years, such as Ed. Square in NSW, as well as Burwood Brickworks and Mambourin in Victoria, the number of Real Utilities customers is forecast to grow to approximately 7,000 by 2025. 

"For Frasers Property to progress Real Utilities to the point where it became established as a business in its own right, the model had to satisfy three key criteria. It had to show benefits to our customers, to our business, and in an environmental sustainability sense," says Bevilacqua.

"We were able to show benefits in these three key areas and demonstrate that Real Utilities can operate as a profitable commercial entity.

"Real Utilities leverages from a business standpoint the energy infrastructure we have been integrating in our developments anyway. We saw an opportunity to add value to our customers by taking on the role of energy provider to deliver cheaper and greener energy."