Pitfalls in playing the power game

By RICHARD BRADDELL

WELLINGTON - Complain she might, but assurances that she will get a power bill are not being met.

The unbilled complainant is one of many consumers who have switched to a new electricity retailer only to find the process is not as rewarding as they might have hoped.

In fact, her woes are at the lower end of things that have gone wrong when people have changed to a new electricity supplier.

The worst, as some people have found out, is that they can have their power cut off altogether, even if they have paid their bill.

This is not how it was supposed to be. Competition was supposed to bring lower prices and better service.

Instead, many New Zealanders have found the process of taking the competitive electricity market at face value to be an unhappy one.

And it is the unsatisfactory performance of the retail market that has been one of the drivers for the electricity inquiry, whose report was released last week.

The inquiry has made several suggestions that should make things better. These include the institution of an electricity ombudsman, preferably organised and paid for by the industry, and improved governance, again preferably organised by the industry, but by Government fiat if that proves unattainable.

But if lower prices are the expected outcome, the inquiry chairman, David Caygill, was more cautious than to commit himself to that.

"Rather than saying prices will necessarily fall from where they are now, what I would say is they will be lower with an effective and fair regulatory framework than they otherwise would be," he said.

Meanwhile, our irate consumer is worried that she has still to get a bill and is worrying what to do.

Ironically, it was only the day before she contacted the Business Herald that the manager of the New Zealand Electricity Market was crowing about getting market procedures into shape.

In May, 19,000 electricity consumers, or 6.7 per cent, changed their supplier, an impressive figure when measured against other newly competitive markets around the world, which have struggled to achieve 5 per cent in a year.

"A new compliance regime began today, which has the potential for companies to receive a hefty fine if they do not switch their customers within the requisite two working days and/or provide a meter reading or estimate within 23 working days," said the market's administrator, Wellington-based M-co.

If so, then judging by our disgruntled consumer's experience, some companies have yet to get the message.