We regularly monitor and report on how well energy licensees are complying with their regulatory requirements.
Electricity and gas compliance activities
Overview
Compliance activities
Our compliance activities are shaped by our Compliance and Enforcement Policy and our annual energy compliance and enforcement priorities.
We use the following factors when assessing compliance matters on a case-by-case basis:
- strategic significance of whether the conduct falls within our compliance and enforcement priorities, and potential impacts upon consumers
- conduct in issue
- reporting and remediation
- compliance culture and history
- cooperation of business with us.
Our current compliance activities are set out below. View our previous compliance activities in the 'Previous compliance activities' tab.
Our priorities
Featured activities
We're monitoring whether retailers are providing best offer messages on customers’ energy bills.
Compliance reviews are a tool available to the commission in its suite of compliance and enforcement powers.
Previous compliance activities
Previous compliance activities
On 10 October 2022, we sent a letter to Victorian energy industry stakeholders regarding mechanisms that licensed electricity retailers in Victoria may use to recover costs incurred due to wholesale market interventions in June 2022, that are or will become payable to AEMO.
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We monitored whether retailers gave customers the correct information when their prices changed.
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In 2021 we audited Simply Energy's explicit informed consent processes to identify the underlying issues resulting in the repeated alleged non-compliance with explicit informed consent requirements.
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After penalising 1st Energy in 2019, we followed up with an audit to re-examine their understanding of what it means to obtain explicit informed consent from a customer before transferring them.
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We required all five Victorian electricity distributors to undergo independent audits to check whether they complied with the smart meter regulatory framework.
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COVID-19 website review
In 2020, we did a sweep of 14 retailers’ websites to check that they were providing information about the help available during COVID-19 and also checked that their family violence policy and complaint processes were accurate and helpful.
Key findings
Overall, the information about the help available during COVID-19 was prominent and easy to find on most of the retailers’ websites. We worked with two retailers to improve the information about COVID-19 assistance on their websites.
Additionally, all websites contained a good level of detail regarding their complaints processes and Family Violence policy. We worked with one retailer to add a list of external family violence support services on their website.
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We audit energy businesses to help us understand how energy businesses are complying with rules designed to protect consumers. If we detect problems through our audit program, we can investigate further and may take enforcement action.
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In 2019, we audited two energy distribution businesses for the second time: AusNet Services and Jemena Electricity Networks.
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We audited retailer’s websites to ensure they were providing information about their customer’s entitlements to assistance.
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During 28 and 29 January 2018, 94,712 Victorian customers lost power at some point. We audited five Victorian electricity distributors to ensure that eligible customers were adequately compensated.
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