We have released our latest surveys of competition, reliability and efficiency (CRE) in the electricity industry. We commissioned UMR Ltd to undertake two surveys in January/February 2015, one of consumers and the other of electricity industry stakeholders, to better understand how they perceive the electricity industry.
While stakeholders perceive the industry to be improving, consumers perceive the industry similarly to last year. This contrasts with last year’s survey which showed consumers’ perceptions improved greatly but stakeholder views were mixed.
Previous surveys were undertaken in August 2011, January/February 2013, and January/February 2014.
Final guidelines published: Improving transparency of consumers’ electricity charges
We have published guidelines for retailers’ and distributors’ communications with media and consumers about price changes. We expect these guidelines will lead to improved transparency about consumers’ electricity charges, by improving how retailers and distributors communicate the reasons for prices changes.
We have also published an updated paper setting out our decisions and reasons for the guidelines, a summary of feedback and our responses to feedback on the draft guidelines, which were originally published on 3 February 2015.
We consider that improving transparency of consumers’ electricity charges will promote our statutory objective of increasing competition in the retail market, because it will result in more engaged consumers. It will also improve consumers’ confidence in the market, which will improve regulatory stability and market durability.
Update on transmission pricing methodology (TPM) timing
The date for releasing the Authority’s TPM options working paper will now be June 2015 at the earliest. This is because we require additional time to consider new aspects of the options in the paper and quantify the impacts of those options. We will continue to provide updates on the TPM timeline as more information become available.
We will hold a reconciliation participant forum at Cliftons, 100 Willis Street, Wellington on 23 June 2015, starting at 9.00 am.
The forum includes a workshop session to discuss operational issues and problems. Participants may suggest additional topics to be included in discussion.
If you are interested in attending the forum, please email your name, contact details and any additional topic requests to marketoperations@ea.govt.nz with ‘June 2015 reconciliation participant forum’ in the subject line. Please note that the venue size means we may have to limit the number of people per organisation who can attend.
We will hold a distributor workshop at Cliftons, 100 Willis Street, Wellington on 24 June 2015, starting at 8.30 am.
This workshop is intended as a training workshop for distributor staff on industry structure, processes, and Code requirements. Other interested parties may also register to attend. Attendees should note that there may be some pre-reading required.
If you are interested in attending the workshop, please email your name, contact details any additional topic requests to marketoperations@ea.govt.nz with ‘June 2015 distributor workshop’ in the subject line. Please note that the venue size means we may have to limit the number of people per organisation who can attend.
A final reminder that nominations for membership of the Retail Advisory Group and the Wholesale Advisory Group are due by 5pm today.
Nominations and accompanying documents should be emailed to rag@ea.govt.nz or wag@ea.govt.nz with ‘Nomination for Retail Advisory Group’ or ‘Nomination for Wholesale Advisory Group’, whichever applies, in the subject line.
Every participant who submitted hedge information during the year 1 April 2014–31 March 2015 must submit a declaration certificate by 30 June 2015. The requirements for these certificates are contained in clause 13.230 of the Code.
If you need to submit a declaration certificate please send it, on company letterhead and using the Hedge Disclosure Declaration form, to marketoperations@ea.govt.nz
Investigation discontinued into an alleged breach by Trustpower Limited
On 21 May 2015, Trustpower Limited reduced the output at its Tararua wind farm from around 80 MW to 0MW without notifying Transpower New Zealand as the system operator. The Compliance Committee decided to discontinue its investigation into this event, because the Code obligations about intermittent generators who revise their persistence offers are ambiguous.
We will also look at amending the Code to make the obligations clearer.
Information plays an important part in building market confidence and strength.
To assist interested parties in tracking market development, the Authority publishes NZ electricity hedge contracts as a standard section of its weekly Market Brief.
