EA offers new consumer protections

The Electricity Authority (EA) has published the Consumer Care Obligations mandating key protections for New Zealand electricity consumers.

This is a significant milestone for consumers and the electricity market, says EA legal, monitoring and compliance general manager Airihi Mahuika.

“Electricity plays a vital role in our everyday lives, keeping us connected and supporting our people, whānau and communities to live healthy, prosperous lives,” she says.

“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 January 1, 2025.

The remaining obligations will take effect from April 1,2 025, 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,” says Mahuika.

”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.”

The EA received more than 300 submissions on the proposal after it released its first consultation to seek feedback on options to improve the voluntary Consumer Care Guidelines in September 2023.

“Throughout our process to deliver the obligations we have had valuable engagement with retailers, distributors, industry groups, consumers, consumer advocates and other organisations,” says Mahuika.

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