Submission to the COAG EC on facilitating access to consumer electricity data

The COAG Energy Council is considering ways to facilitate improved access to useful electricity data for consumers and their agents. PIAC supports this but notes that while all consumers should have the opportunity to access energy and make use of data, they must not be obliged to.

Opportunities to access information and compare products and services need to be as straight forward as possible. In PIAC’s view, it should be no more complicated or time-consuming for a consumer to access information from a trusted third party than from an energy retailer, and this should be reflected in the arrangements for that third party accessing customer energy data.

In developing a data access scheme for the electricity sector and, more broadly, in implementing the Consumer Data Right, it is essential that: the benefits possible from having a consumer’s actual data to make offers and quotes are passed through to consumers; there are appropriate protections in place against the potential misuse of data, especially from aggregating multiple data sources; and consumers provide explicit informed consent to what their data will be used for and where their data is going.