Power players warned over data sharing

Electricity retailers and network companies have been told to speed up their efforts on data sharing or risk having the Electricity Authority and the Commerce Commission impose standards on them.

Industry and regulators have spent much of the past two years trying to change network pricing and simplify access to customer data so that households and businesses can get more direct benefit from the solar and batteries they are installing and so lines companies can also draw on those new technologies to reduce investment in lines and transformers and lower costs to all consumers.

Nick Russ, general manager for regulation at the Commerce Commission, said everyone can see the potential benefits from decarbonisation and lower costs the new technologies could deliver.

Distributors will play an important role in facilitating open access on their lines which should speed the take-up of new technology, he told delegates at the Downstream energy conference in Auckland this week.

The challenge is to make sure there is a genuinely level playing field and that network companies are open to buying in services from their customers or other providers, rather than trying to do everything themselves, he said.

Electricity Authority board member Lana Stockman, speaking on the same panel as Russ, said “pockets” of progress are being made.

“The thing for the industry to focus on is to make it happen — because otherwise we will make it happen,” she said. “The onus on the industry is to get this sorted out and work out how you can effectively share the data. Because if you don’t, you’re going to leave myself and Nick in the position of telling you how to do it, and I don’t think that’s something you really want us to do.”