The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has commenced preliminary consultation on the various guidelines that it will be required to develop after the passage of the proposed National Energy Retail Law (Retail Law).
The guidelines developed for preliminary consultation are based on the second exposure draft of the National Energy Customer Framework (released November 2009) and will be updated following passage of the final framework.
Upon the passage of the Retail Law, the AER will be seeking stakeholder comment on the guidelines under the formal consultation process set out in the Retail Rules. This may have to occur within a tight timeframe. Accordingly, the AER is undertaking preliminary consultation during 2010 to provide stakeholders with as much opportunity as possible to consider the key issues and comment on the preparation of draft guidelines.
Draft retailer authorisation guideline
Under the proposed Retail Law, a person is prohibited from engaging in the retail sale of energy unless the person has obtained a retailer authorisation or is exempt from the requirement to obtain an authorisation. The AER will be responsible for issuing and revoking retailer authorisations.
As part of its retailer authorisation role, the AER will be required to develop a guideline to assist applicants to understand the process for energy retailer authorisations and for the transfer, surrender and revocation of retailer authorisations. The guideline is intended to help explain the AER's procedures for assessing applications for a retailer authorisation (and for revocation, surrender or transfer of a retailer authorisation) and sets out the information required by the AER to assess a retailer authorisation application against the entry criteria.
As a first step in the AER's consultation on authorisations, the AER has prepared a draft guideline and an issues paper that accompanies the draft guideline.
The draft guideline and issues paper are available on the new retail page of the AER's website.
Draft pricing information guideline
The AER today also published an issues paper relating to the proposed pricing information guideline. The pricing information guideline is likely to be required under the proposed Retail Law to assist customers in readily comparing standing offer tariffs and market offer tariffs offered by retailers. It will specify the manner and form in which details of standing offer prices and market offer prices are to be presented.
The issues paper considers a number of price disclosure models that have been adopted by energy retail markets in different jurisdictions and poses a series of questions for stakeholders on the model that the AER should adopt in the draft guideline.
The issues paper is available on the new retail page of the AER's website.
Submissions
Stakeholders are invited to provide comments on the above documents by 30 April 2010.
Submissions can be sent electronically to: AERInquiry
aer [dot] gov [dot] au (AERInquiry[at]aer[dot]gov[dot]au)
Alternatively, submissions can be mailed to:
General ManagerMarkets Branch
Australian Energy Regulator
GPO Box 520
Melbourne VIC 3000
The AER prefers that all submissions be publicly available to facilitate an informed and transparent consultative process. Submissions will be treated as public documents unless otherwise requested. Parties wishing to submit confidential information are requested to:
- clearly identify the information that is the subject of the confidentiality claim
- provide a non-confidential version of the submission.
All non-confidential submissions will be placed on the AER's website.