Draft Benefit Change Notice Guidelines – request for submissions

The Australian Energy Regulator invites submissions from stakeholders on the Draft Benefit Change Notice Guidelines (Draft Guidelines) by Monday 21 May 2018.

The Draft Guidelines outline the proposed requirements retailers need to comply with when notifying customers that a benefit under their market retail contract is ending or changing.

The Draft Guidelines cover the following sections:

• when a benefit change notice is required—informing retailers when they are required to send a benefit change notice to customers
• manner and form of the benefit change notice—setting out requirements on how retailers must display information on the notice and the manner in which it must be sent to customers
• content of the benefit change notice—setting the specific information that retailers must provide in the notice
• generating the dollar amounts on the benefit change notice—setting out how retailers must calculate amounts on the notice.

Invitation for submissions

Interested stakeholders are invited to make a written submission on the Draft Guidelines by Monday 21 May 2018. Due to timing constraints, late submissions will not be considered.

Submissions should be sent electronically to AERInquiryaer [dot] gov [dot] au with the subject line Draft Benefit Change Notification Guidelines. We ask that all submissions sent electronically are in Microsoft Word, PDF or other text readable document formats.

Alternatively, written submissions can be mailed to:

Ms Sarah ProudfootGeneral Manager – Retail Markets
Australian Energy Regulator
GPO Box 520
Melbourne VIC 3001

Scheduled meetings

If interested stakeholders prefer to meet with us in person instead of providing a written submission, we will be scheduling meetings with stakeholders in the weeks beginning 30 April 2018 and 7 May 2018. Please email AERInquiryaer [dot] gov [dot] au by 27 April 2018 if you would like to arrange a time for a meeting. 

Background

Under the National Energy Retail Rules, we are required to develop Benefit Change Notice Guidelines by 1 July 2018.

The Guidelines aim to increase customer engagement and ensure disengaged customers are not unfairly penalised by requiring retailers to notify customers when a benefit changes or ends. We consider a benefit change notice is an important tool to encourage customer engagement with the energy market.