The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has today released its draft Compliance Procedures and Guidelines and Statement of Approach to compliance with the new National Energy Customer Framework.
National legislation giving effect to the Customer Framework passed both houses of South Australian Parliament without amendment on 9 March 2011, and received Royal Assent on 17 March 2011. The Ministerial Council on Energy agreed on 10 December 2010 that jurisdictions would work toward a common target date of 1 July 2012 for commencement of the new Customer Framework.
The Customer Framework is the final stage in the transition to national regulation of the energy markets. The AER will be responsible for monitoring compliance with the new Customer Framework from the date of its commencement. To support this new role, the AER is empowered to develop Compliance Procedures and Guidelines.
The AER commenced consultation on approaches to its compliance monitoring and enforcement role with the release of an Issues Paper on 31 May 2010. A draft decision, and preliminary draft Statement of Approach and Compliance Procedures and Guidelines were released on 10 December 2010. These papers, and written submissions received in response to them, are available on the AER’s website.
The AER has used the earlier consultation to develop the draft guideline and Statement of Approach released with this notice. This notice and the attached draft guideline and statement of approach have been published on the AER’s website in accordance with the retail consultation procedure set out in cl. 173 of the National Energy Retail Rules.
This will be the last round of consultation prior to release of the final documents. The finalised documents are expected to be released later this year.
How to make submissions
The AER invites comments on the attached draft guideline and Statement of Approach. Responses to this consultation will inform the AER’s approach to compliance under the National Energy Customer Framework (the Customer Framework) and the development of its final guideline and statement of approach.
Written submissions on the draft guideline and statement of approach are invited by Friday 6 May 2011.
Submissions should be sent electronically to: AERInquiry
aer [dot] gov [dot] au (AERInquiry[at]aer[dot]gov[dot]au) with the title “Draft AER Compliance Procedures and Guidelines – attn. Lynley Jorgensen”.