Key Changes
From 1 July 2019, you, as a Victorian energy retailer, will be obliged to*:
• tell customers whether they’re on your best generally available energy plan and how much they could save by switching to that plan (best offer message), at least quarterly for electricity bills and at least every 4 months for gas bills
• give customers at least five days warning before making changes that will affect the customer’s bill (and include the ‘best offer’ message)
• provide clear and helpful advice about your energy plans before signing a customer on to a new energy deal (taking into account all relevant terms and conditions)
While there will be a grace period for you to implement this new requirement, non-compliance will be a breach of the Victorian Retail Licence Conditions.
(*Full details are contained in the Essential Services Commission 30/12/18 final decision: Building Trust through new customer entitlements in the retail energy market)
Ensuring compliance with new regulations
With 1 July only months away, you should already be thinking about how you can perform the extensive calculations required to ensure each and every customer is on best available energy plan.
We have been developing software solutions that adapt to the ever-evolving needs and regulations of the Australian energy market since 2005, and has released a new tool to help retailers meet their best offer obligations.
Brave’s intelligent and powerful calculation engine, the Best Offer Calculator, can automatically determine your best offers and easily produce electricity and gas bills in line with the new regulations. This cloud-based solution will perform the complex task of calculating each generally available offer, determine the one that is the best for your customer and provide this detail via a standard API. The details provided can then be used when generating invoices, welcome packs or bill change notices.
The Best Offer Calculator can easily integrate with any current billing system, allowing retailers to meet regulatory requirements with a minimum of change to existing systems and processes.
Check out how our Best Offer Calculator will keep you compliant in a simple, automated way.