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Electricity Industry Act 2010

Miscellaneous - Regulations

113: Regulations about tariffs and other consumer issues

You could also call this:

“Rules for fair electricity prices and good customer service”

The Governor-General can make rules about electricity prices and how electricity companies treat their customers. These rules are meant to help protect people who use electricity at home and small businesses.

The rules can do things like:

  1. Make sure there are special low-cost options for people who don’t use much electricity.
  2. Allow for different rules in different parts of New Zealand.
  3. Make electricity companies give clear information about their prices.
  4. Set guidelines for how electricity companies should deal with their customers.
  5. Protect people in rural areas from unfair price changes.
  6. Protect people who get their electricity from alternative sources.

If companies break these rules, they might have to pay a fine of up to $100,000.

Before making these rules, the Minister needs to talk to the Minister of Consumer Affairs and get advice from the Electricity Authority about how the rules might affect the electricity industry.

In these rules, a ‘rural consumer’ means someone who lives in an area where not many people live.

The current rules about low fixed charge options for household electricity users are treated as if they were made under this law.

These regulations are considered ‘secondary legislation’, which means they have to follow certain rules about how they’re published.

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This page was last updated on

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM2634528.

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Part 5 Miscellaneous
Regulations

113Regulations about tariffs and other consumer issues

  1. The Governor-General may, by Order in Council made on the recommendation of the Minister given after the consultation referred to in subsection (4), make regulations for the purpose of—

  2. regulating the type of tariffs for fixed and other charges that must or may be offered to domestic consumers; and
    1. promoting the fair treatment by distributors and retailers of domestic consumers and small business consumers; and
      1. enabling the protection of rural consumers, and consumers supplied with electricity from an alternative source under section 105, from unfair rates of change in the prices charged to them.

        1. Regulations made under subsection (1) may, without limitation, do any of the following:

        2. require low fixed charge tariff options to be made available to consumers who use less than a prescribed amount of electricity, and impose requirements (including amounts, or ways of calculating amounts) on industry participants in order to ensure that those tariffs result in a benefit to domestic consumers who opt for them:
          1. provide for regional variations in the application of the regulations relating to low fixed charge tariff options:
            1. require distributors or retailers, or both, to provide information relating to the types of tariffs offered to consumers, including to low fixed charge tariffs:
              1. regulate distributors’ and retailers’ dealings with domestic consumers and small business consumers, including requiring distributors and retailers to comply with any policies, practices, procedures, guidelines, or model contracts or clauses in contracts, that are set out or referred to in the regulations:
                1. regulate the rate of change in the prices charged by distributors to rural consumers on a network as compared with the rate of change in the prices charged to comparable non-rural consumers on the same network:
                  1. regulate the rate of change in the prices charged to consumers supplied with electricity from an alternative source under section 105:
                    1. provide for offences, punishable on conviction by a fine prescribed by the regulations but not exceeding $100,000, for breaching any regulation made under this section.

                      1. Regulations made under this section may include any other provisions necessary or desirable for monitoring and enforcing compliance with the regulations.

                      2. Before recommending an Order in Council under this section, the Minister must—

                      3. consult with the Minister of Consumer Affairs; and
                        1. obtain and consider advice from the Authority on the impact of the proposed Order in Council on the promotion of competition in, the reliable supply by, and the efficient operation of, the electricity industry.

                          1. In this section, rural consumer means a consumer in a sparsely populated area.

                          2. Repealed

                          3. The Electricity (Low Fixed Charge Tariff Option for Domestic Consumers) Regulations 2004 are deemed to have been made under this section.

                          4. Regulations under this section are secondary legislation (see Part 3 of the Legislation Act 2019 for publication requirements).

                          Compare
                          Notes
                          • Section 113(1)(b): amended, on , by section 41(1) of the Electricity Industry Amendment Act 2022 (2022 No 46).
                          • Section 113(2)(d): amended, on , by section 41(1) of the Electricity Industry Amendment Act 2022 (2022 No 46).
                          • Section 113(2)(g): amended, on , by section 413 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 (2011 No 81).
                          • Section 113(5): replaced, on , by section 41(2) of the Electricity Industry Amendment Act 2022 (2022 No 46).
                          • Section 113(6): repealed, on , by section 41(3) of the Electricity Industry Amendment Act 2022 (2022 No 46).
                          • Section 113(8): inserted, on , by section 3 of the Secondary Legislation Act 2021 (2021 No 7).