Energy Consumers Australia thanks the Energy Security Board (ESB) for the opportunity to comment on proposed improvements in access to existing data as part of their Data Strategy reforms. We appreciate the ESB listing Energy Consumers Australia as a Class A Body and look forward to any opportunities this may present to enhance our policy, advocacy and research functions.

In our earlier submission to the ESB’s Data Strategy, we argued that data is an important tool for innovation and will be fundamental in ensuring the Post 2025 Market Design unlocks value for consumers. These initial reforms are an important first step towards this goal. Reliable and accurate data allows decision-makers and advocates to identify emerging issues, draft solutions and evaluate their impacts. The importance of this is only amplified in a rapidly changing energy industry where Consumer Energy Resources (CER) are already impacting the ways consumers interact with energy systems and markets.

In this Consultation Paper, the ESB has noted a number of issues that exist due to current data access arrangements. We agree that complicated regulations around sharing and accessing data have led to undesirable outcomes such as duplication of the data as it is collected by multiple bodies, workarounds and data gaps. We also note that the work being done by the ESB echoes efforts being made more widely within the energy industry to ensure knowledge and information are shared efficiently to avoid such issues and encourage collaboration industry-wide.

Read the complete submission by clicking on the image below: