Between the lines: Judgment day on horizon, but power companies reprieved

Power users baying for blood over delays in switching suppliers will have to sheathe their fangs for a while.

The Maria conduct committee met for the first time this week to consider a number of rule breaches. Maria stands for the Metering and Reconciliation Information Agreement governing customer switching and the competitive retail electricity market.

Four-figure fines are expected as punishment for those electricity retailers that have failed to allow customers to change suppliers within the maximum allowable time.

But customers will have to be patient. The independent committee will not make public its first decisions on the three switching cases it considered until the middle of the month.

The retailers involved are being given some time to respond before the three-member committee hands down judgment and penalties.

It is understood retail electricity market operator M-Co was keen to avoid one retailer being singled out for blame about problems besetting the whole industry.

To put the problem and consumer dissatisfaction into context, the committee has a raft of other cases to rule on next month and a fourth investigator is being hired to look into alleged breaches.

We've all heard the complaints. Customers waiting months to switch retailers or to receive a bill. Some even had their power cut off.

Mike van Lokven of Christchurch struck a chord with many when he threatened to bill TransAlta at his standard work charge-out rate of $100 an hour for the time taken to resolve his switching hassles.

The Consumers Institute says complaints about electricity retailers now surpass those about banks. Now that's saying something.

Latest figures show New Zealand is experiencing a world record customer churn of 10.5 per cent. Almost 72,000 customers changed electricity retailers last month - a figure inflated by backlogs.

A new "robust" disciplinary regime was introduced by the Maria governance board, backed by hefty fines in July. Problems have been exacerbated by consumer backlash to TransAlta's recent increase in its fixed daily power charges, which hit the pockets of smaller users.

In a classic case of too little, too late, retailers First Electric, Mercury Energy (both owned by Mighty River Power) and TransAlta announced this week a joint project to improve switching. Still working within the industry protocol, the companies are looking to refine the current process, particularly in the key area of computer interface between retailers' systems.

The process can be sped up if manual inputting of transfer data is reduced by having the systems "talk" directly to each other.

Gee, thanks guys. What have we been waiting for?

As consumers wait for revenge, the industry should heed the words of British politician Viscount Hewart: justice should not only be done, but should be seen to be done.