Electricity Authority publishes new consumer protections

The Electricity Authority Te Mana Hiko (Authority) has published the Consumer Care Obligations (Obligations), mandating key protections for electricity consumers in New Zealand.

The Authority’s General Manager of Legal, Monitoring and Compliance, Airihi Mahuika says this is a significant milestone for consumers and the electricity market.

“Electricity plays a vital role in our everyday lives, keeping us connected and supporting our people, whānau and communities to live healthy, prosperous lives. As a kaitiaki of electricity in Aotearoa, we are pleased to be putting mandated protections in place to support positive and respectful interactions between power companies and their customers.”

The two key protections – prohibiting retailers from disconnecting customers they know to be medically dependent and requiring any fees or charges to be reasonable - will apply from 1 January 2025. The remaining obligations will take effect from 1 April 2025 to ensure retailers have the necessary operational changes in place to implement the new requirements for their customers.

“The Obligations are a set of minimum standards that all retailers must comply with if they sell electricity to residential consumers. They will ensure consumers can expect a consistent, standard level of care regardless of which power company they choose. We see the Obligations as foundational protections, which retailers can build on to continue improving customer experience,” explains Mahuika.

The Authority released its first consultation to seek feedback on options to improve the voluntary Consumer Care Guidelines in September 2023. One year on, a consultation was released on the proposed Code amendment to mandate the Obligations.

“We received more than 300 submissions on this proposal. The feedback has been incredibly valuable and has helped inform our final decisions on the Code amendment,” continues Mahuika.

The input received from industry participants and consumer advocates highlighted important operational considerations. This has helped the Authority refine the Obligations, to ensure they are practical and achieve the right outcomes for consumers, while also giving retailers the flexibility to innovate.

“Throughout our process to deliver the Obligations we have had valuable engagement with retailers, distributors, industry groups, consumers, consumer advocates and other organisations. We want to thank everyone for the time and mahi they gave to this process. We look forward to seeing these protections embedded across the electricity sector for the benefit of all residential consumers.”

Information to support retailers to implement the Obligations and consumers to understand their rights will be published on the Authority’s website by 1 January 2025.