This message first appeared in our February 2025 newsletter. To stay up to date with the latest news and research on energy issues that impact consumers, sign up to receive our monthly newsletter below.
As many of you know, there are currently some very big enquiries underway in the energy sector - ranging from a consideration of the long term investment settings for the national market, to a review of the way pricing and tariffs are set and presented to retail customers, to reforms of consumer protections in the various energy rules, to the availability of real time data to consumers via smart meters.
At ECA, we are deeply supportive of all these reforms - and many more. It makes for a big agenda, but we think that’s to be expected at this stage of the energy transition. It’s never been more critical for a loud voice on behalf of consumers.
There’s a challenge, though, that I think is quite particular to this sector. Many of the reforms being considered have a level of technical complexity that makes it very hard for many consumer organisations to engage.
To a considerable degree, this is unavoidable; so many of the issues we are dealing with have deeply arcane dimensions to them - whether it’s the economics of tariff reform, the engineering complexities of network efficiency, or the legal dimensions of energy rules, codes and standards.
There are a few advocacy bodies that specialise in energy matters - and they all do excellent work. Often, however, we will see dozens of submissions to an enquiry from industry and investors, but only a few from consumer advocates (good though they are).
One of our new targets in our 3-Year Plan is ‘Representation’. We have several activities underway to aid in strengthening the consumer voice. I’ll update you in an upcoming newsletter about some of these.
But in the first instance, I wanted to let you know that we are going to do our level best to involve more voices in energy discussions, provide greater information and insights to consumer and membership organisations, and broaden/deepen alliances with organisations representing households and small businesses.
We think our advocacy work will be all the better by involving more expert consumer voices in its design and utilising fuller networks to distribute ideas and information. In the process we hope to amplify the standing of consumers in all the decisions that affect them.
We hope you’ll join us in this important work.
Brendan
