Webinar: Improving monitoring of the retail market

Thank you to those who attended our webinar on how we propose to improve our monitoring of the retail market as part of our retail monitoring consultation.

This webinar was presented on Wednesday 24 January 2024 by Daniel Griffiths, Manager of our Retail and Networks policy team.

Where are you going to publish the analysis of data we submit?

We are intending to release quarterly and annual reports on our website - similar to how there is currently for the wholesale market. We also intend to expand upon the retail section of EMI, adding dashboards and updating them monthly.

We saw your recent consultation on the 24/25 levy, are you confident you have the resources for this?

Our board is focused on evidence-based policy making and improving our data collection, monitoring, and insights. We are aware that the monitoring team will need to be sufficiently resourced. Our consultation on our appropriation for 24/25 closed on 31 January and we will be submitting a funding request shortly.

On information published was there an intention to include aggregate data on spot price exposed retail tariffs?

We are unaware of any spot exposed retail tariffs currently available to the domestic market however, our data request has a flag for that should they become available, and we do intend on including an aggregate analysis of all tariffs.

Will the EA make the data is has been collecting to date (but not making public) be made available in the interim?

In late 2023, we engaged with affected parties in the retail market on our intention to publish data collected by the Authority under the Retailer Financial Stress Notice (eg, those retailers with over 1000 ICPs to whom the notice applies). We are now putting together the appropriate material to announce this decision shortly.

As noted in the consultation paper, we are aware of the limitations of this data and will make this clear in the communication materials accompanying its release.

In the consultation paper the Authority talks about the "irregular quality" of data obtained to date under previous requests. Just wondering how this will be any different especially when the scale of the data is so much greater and open to so much variability?

By requesting raw data, we hope to avoid retailer interoperability issues that have occurred in previous data requests. In previous requests the retailer has been asked to transform data to answer questions whereas in this request we are shifting the responsibility of that to the Authority.

Attempting to link data from different requests has been one of the main sources of data irregularity within the Authority. The tabular format of the retail data request is intended to serve as a foundation so that linking historical data to new data should become seamless.

This request also gives retailers the ability to resubmit data whenever they identify errors in their historical data where they have not been able to previously, which should serve to improve the accuracy of the Authority’s reporting.

Is intention that all retailers, big and small, will have these new requirements applied to them?

Currently, our draft notice specifies that it applies to all retailers as defined in section 5 of the Act (see Appendix A of the consultation paper). We want to hear from retailers of all sizes about how the proposed notice may affect their business. Retailer submissions in response to our consultation questions will inform a second consultation on the potential costs and benefits of the proposal and our final decision on the scope of the proposal. We are also interested in feedback on the scope of the proposed notice.

You have said the data would inform EA policy, and it will be made available for industry. Will consumption data be made available for industry modelling?

The intention is for the consumption data to be used by the Authority for its own statistical and research purposes, with any published reports containing aggregated data only.

Monthly billing data - what is the rationale behind requiring this at the ICP level?

Collecting billing data at an ICP level enables us to tie a households pricing data to consumption data and understand trends in price-based demand response. Understanding what fees, penalties, and rates are paid by an ICP and connecting this data with other information, will enable us to establish a complete picture of incentives, prices, and contract conditions across the retail market, enabling us to better monitor the market and competition within it. This reasoning is covered more thoroughly in the consultation paper.

This webinar was part of our consultation about streamlining our collection of retail data with a single data request to improve our monitoring of the retail market.

Learn more about this consultation and have your say by making a submission by 13 February 2024.

View consultation