Victorian energy open forum 2019

Our first session of the day focused on recommendation 4 from the independent review of the electricity and gas retail market - aimed at ensuring customers understand and have greater certainty about what they will pay on a given contract.

During the session we heard:

• there is a desire for a very clear definition of the problem being solved by this recommendation
• changes must not require customers to think more but should simplify and clarify.

Some key themes emerged from our session on proposed new data indicators, including:

• raw numbers alone are not enough to tell you a story – that we need data over time to see the movement or trend.
• data collection – when it’s not already collected by the business for other reasons – may ultimately cost customers, so we need to be mindful about the data we ask for.

We then turned our attention to the reset of the Victorian Default Offer.

We spent some time going over feedback on our recent issues paper and we talked over options for setting the maximum annual bill.

We heard:

• The issues around setting a maximum bill are complex.
• There was strong interest in the commission releasing as much information as possible on wholesale cost estimation.

Straight after lunch, we had a presentation from family violence lead Lucy Weston on promoting the safety and wellbeing of Victorian consumers affected by family violence.

Lucy talked through the recent code changes and the release of a better practice guide designed to support energy businesses as they implement the code changes. View all family violence resources for businesses.

The next session focused on a review of another of our key regulatory instruments – the Electricity Distribution Code.

This was a real working session with a focus on testing technical standards and customer protection provisions.

And our final workshop of the day, where we looked at proposed changes to life support provisions including:

• alignment with the national electricity rules
• the difference between the current and proposed framework
• embedded networks.

And for the final presentation of the day, the Senior Manager, Strategic Communication Michelle Bryne presented on the outcomes of the recent 'Its your energy' information campaign.

This work was something quite new for us the results speak for themselves  - with a significant increase in consumer awareness  about the fact they have energy rights, but showed us there is more work to be done to help the community understand those rights.