The Electricity Authority Te Mana Hiko (the Authority)
has confirmed two key initiatives to empower consumers to
take full advantage of a dynamic and competitive energy
market. The first is to develop a new, next-generation
comparison and switching service and the second is a
proposal to enable consumers to choose multiple providers
for different power services.
Authority Chief
Executive Sarah Gillies says: “In 2022, the Authority’s
functions were expanded to include protecting the interests
of domestic and small business consumers, and we began
broadening our view of consumer mobility. These two
initiatives form part of the Authority’s consumer mobility
programme, supporting households and businesses to become
active players in the electricity market.
“We envisage
a future in which consumers are equipped with data and
innovative tools to seamlessly compare and switch plans and
providers, choose multiple providers for different services,
and sell surplus power back to the grid, all with a few taps
on a smart device,” says Gillies.
“This future will
enable consumers to optimise costs, benefit from new
technologies, and have more flexibility to choose the
services that provide the best value for their needs –
whether directly or through new providers and automated
services.
“To achieve this, we’ll need a comparison
and switching service that can leverage AI-enabled tools,
improvements in data standardisation and a future
consumer-data-right. Consumers will also need access to
multiple trading relationships so they can engage multiple
retailers, for example to buy and sell from different
retailers for electricity consumption and
generation.”
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The Authority’s ‘Evolving
multiple retailing and switching’ consultation paper
sets out the case for enabling consumers to choose different
retailers for consumption and generation that offer the best
value.
The Authority believes this will
drive lower costs, improved services, and more reliable
supply. This in turn will encourage retailers to compete for
and better reward consumers, including those with
distributed generation like solar panels, battery storage
and electric vehicles. These changes will also encourage
innovators to develop new products and services, leading to
increased choice for consumers and more options for
distributed generation.
Gillies says a new, easier
comparison and switching service is considered essential to
enabling consumer mobility. “The time is right to develop a
service that will go beyond providing a website, to empower
consumers to take full advantage of a dynamic and
competitive energy market,” says Gillies.
“We have
been funding Powerswitch for several years, and this has
served retail power consumers well over this time. We are
now looking to provide an enhanced digital service that
gives consumers more control over their energy bills,
strengthens retail competition and encourages innovation and
better service delivery.”
The Authority highly values
Powerswitch’s contribution to supporting consumer choice
and will continue to support and promote it until a new
comparison and switching solution is launched later this
year. The Authority was encouraged by the strong response to
the procurement process from providers with a range of new
thinking, approaches and technical capability, and expects
to announce a new comparison and switching service partner
in coming weeks.
Note:
The Electricity Authority
is an independent Crown Entity with the main statutory
objective to promote competition in, reliable supply by, and
the efficient operation of, the electricity industry for the
long-term benefit of consumers. The additional objective of
the Authority is to protect the interests of domestic
consumers and small business consumers in relation to the
supply of electricity to those
consumers.
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