On 19 October 2018, the COAG Energy Council Standing Committee of Officials requested the AEMC in conjunction with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) to provide coordinated advice on improving the customer transfer process.

The request for advice seeks to consider and address the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Retail Electricity Pricing Inquiry final report recommendations 8 and 9 related to customer transfers.   

The AEMC and AEMO joint advice proposes a number of actions to improve and streamline the existing customer transfer process.The proposed actions are based on the view that there is a range of issues with the customer transfer process and changes should be made if customer expectations and competition in the retail energy market are to be improved. 
 

Background

On 11 July 2018, the ACCC released its Retail Electricity Pricing Inquiry final report.  As part of that report, the ACCC made a number of recommendations to improve the existing customer transfer process.  These recommendations included that:

• AEMO amend its rules and procedures so that losing retailers are only given a loss notification on the actual date of transfer of financial responsibility for the customer to the new retailer (Recommendation 8). 
• The AEMC make changes to speed up the customer transfer process, for example by enabling customers to use self-reads of their electricity meters (Recommendation 9).