The National Energy Retail Rules (the ‘Rules’) regulate energy retailers and distributors in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, and the ACT. However, they can be detailed and complex. As a utilities business operating from one of these states or territories, you must know your obligations under the Rules. This article will review some key aspects of the Rules and explain how they relate to your business.
Obligations to Your Customers
There are several obligations that you, as a utilities business, owe to your customers.
Firstly, you should aim to provide continuously high-quality service to your customers. This includes providing information to customers about their energy or gas consumption and relevant charges upon request. If you are an energy distributor, you should also maintain a 24-hour phone line where customers can seek information on or report faults. Being transparent as a distributor also involves catering to customers’ specific needs, such as referring them to interpreter services where necessary.
Furthermore, when planning an outage, you must provide your customers with advanced notice. In the event of an unplanned outage, you must inform your customers of the outages as soon as possible.
Critically, important information about your energy distribution services should be readily available on your website. This information can include:
- descriptions of their customer connection contracts;
- methods for customers and retailers to obtain copies of the contracts;
- details of distributor service standards and other related GSL schemes;
- details of applicable energisation and re-energisation timeframes;
- notices of customers’ rights to negotiate different terms if applicable;
- details of charges for customer connection services;
- information about new connections or connection alterations;
- a description of the distributor’s and customer’s respective rights and obligations concerning the energy laws; and
- a summary of the rights, entitlements and obligations of small customers.
Where customers seek such information, you must direct them to your website or provide it in another way.
Relations Between Retailers and Distributors
The Rules also regulate the interactions and relations between retailers and distributors in the energy space. We discuss these regulations for both retailers and distributors below.
As a Distributor
If your business distributes utilities or energy, you must liaise with both the retailer and the customer when you both share customers. For example, you need to:
- Provide your contact details to the retailer: In turn, the retailer must provide their contact information and the details of their National Electricity Market (NEM) representative and marketing coordinator.
- Give customer service information to the retailer: This includes procedures or ports of call for customer inquiries, fault reporting and emergency reporting. It also extended to any planned outages, with relevant details included. The retailer will then relay the information to shared customers.
- Provide retailer contact information to the customer: This arises when a customer complains to a distributor about their electricity meter, which is a retailer concern.
- Inform the retailer about de-energisation: If you plan to validly de-energise a customer’s premises, you must inform the retailer as soon as possible after it occurs and provide your reasons for doing so.
As a Retailer
On the other hand, if you are an energy or utilities retailer, some of your obligations to the distributor and shared customers are:
- Requesting a customer connection to the distributor: Where a customer is seeking customer connection services about an existing connection and has contacted you, you must request it from a distributor on their behalf. Your request must be as prompt as possible, so that the distributor can make the customer connection as soon as practicable.
- Giving reasonable assistance to the distributor: If you share a customer with a distributor, you must make any relevant documentation available to them at no cost and in a timely manner. You should also notify the distributor of changes in the given information as soon as possible.
- Providing distributor information to the customer: This occurs when the customer complains to you about distribution or connection services.
- Informing the distributor about de-energisation: If you have arranged to de-energise a customer’s premises remotely, you must let the distributor know as soon as practicable afterwards, providing your reasons for doing so.
Contracts
The Rules contain model standard contracts for you to use as models for your customer contracts. These standard contracts include everything necessary to include per the Rules, and it is recommended that you follow them carefully when drafting your contracts.
Your Rights
The Rules contain certain rights that you have as a utilities supplier.
Firstly, you have the right to interrupt supply at any time, whether the interruption is a planned interruption to services or an unplanned interruption. For planned interruptions, you must notify your customer in advance. Where the customer uses your services to power life support equipment, you will need their consent to plan an interruption. You will also need to restore the power as soon as possible. In the case of an unplanned interruption, you must inform your customers of the interruption as quickly as you can and restore power as soon as possible.
You may also de-energise a customer’s premises if they have not paid a bill by the relevant date or have not adhered to the terms of their payment plan. To do so, you must have already made your best efforts to contact the customer. This includes giving them a reminder notice to pay and a disconnection warning notice. You can also de-energise a customer’s premises where they have, on three consecutive occasions, refused to allow you to read their meter. You must still have issued a disconnection warning notice and tried to contact the customer.
Whether you’re a small business owner or the Chief Financial Officer of an ASX-listed company, one fact remains: your customers need to pay you.
This manual aims to help business owners, financial controllers and credit managers best manage and recover their debt.
Other Matters
Outside of these critical areas, there are still matters that you must be aware of concerning the Rules. In particular, different rules will apply if:
- you supply energy to premises that use it for life support equipment; or
- your customers are experiencing hardship, e.g. financial troubles or livelihood matters like domestic violence.
If you are dealing with a customer where such considerations apply, consider seeking legal advice from an experienced utilities lawyer. This can help you to better understand your rights and responsibilities in special circumstances.
Key Takeaways
When providing energy services, you should be aware of how the National Energy Retail Rules affect your business. Crucially, you are obligated to provide relevant information and notice of certain events or circumstances to customers. Between businesses, the Rules require retailers and distributors to cooperate and share information when they have a shared customer. They also include model standard contracts that you should base your own contracts on. As a distributor or retailer, you should provide notice before exercising your rights, including de-energising a customer’s premises in certain situations. Finally, you should be aware of when the regulations in the Rules do not apply to certain customers in special circumstances.
If you need help managing your obligations under the National Energy Retail Rules, our experienced greentech lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents. Call us today on 1300 544 755 or visit our membership page.
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