AGL recently responded to the Australian Energy Market Commission's (AEMC) Retailer of Last Resort (RoLR) review consultation.
The AEMC makes a range of recommendations on how to amend the RoLR process, including allowing retailers to submit market offers for consideration, allowing a period of up to 24 hours where retailers would not be notified of acquiring new retailers (thereby exposing retailers to unnecessary financial exposure) and other issues.
In our response we encourage the AEMC to consider the extent of the problem (if any) that exists with the current RoLR regime and to thoroughly test this against a robust cost-benefit assessment. In particular, we believe that the introduction of market offers into the RoLR process undermines the very structure of the retail energy market (which allows for standing offers in these types of situations) and undermines the basis of explicit informed consent which is fundamental to our National Energy Retail Law (NERL) and Rules (NERR).
You can read our full submission here.