The Western Australian Government introduced market reforms to the Western Australian gas retail market on 31 May 2004. These reforms include the introduction of practical full retail contestability and several new customer protection mechanisms.

Practical Full Retail Contestability

Achieving full retail contestability means that all of the legal and technical requirements are now in place to allow new gas companies to enter the marketplace, thereby providing retail choice for all gas customers in the State.

The Retail Market Scheme (RMS)

A retailer must be a member of an approved RMS if it wishes to sell gas to customers through a gas distribution system and there is at least one other company selling gas through that distribution system.

An RMS is a scheme that enables a retail market administrator to manage the gas market. RMS must cover the process for customer transfers, as well as the balancing, allocation, and reconciliation of the gas market.

An approved RMS that covers  all of the WA Gas Networks distribution systems is in place. The retail market administrator for this RMS is the Retail Energy Market Company Limited (REMCo). Additional information on REMCo and the RMS can be obtained from the REMCo web site.

Responsibility for regulatory oversight of the REMCo RMS initially resided with the Minister for Energy, but this was transferred to the Economic Regulation Authority (ERA) on 31 May 2005.

Selling Gas to Small Use Customers

A retailer must have a gas trading licence issued by the ERA to sell gas to small use customers (i.e. residential and small business customers that consume less than 1TJ of gas per year). Information on how to obtain such a licence can be found by contacting the ERA.

Current Gas Market Operators in Western Australia

Note that the South Western Coastal Area stretches from Geraldton in the North to Busselton in the South, and includes the Perth metropolitan area.

Customer Protection Mechanisms

As part of the implementation of practical full retail contestability, the Western Australian Government introduced a number of mechanisms to protect small use customers in the new competitive gas market. These include:

• the Gas Industry Ombudsman Scheme (which has now been converted into the Energy Ombudsman);
• the Gas Marketing Code of Conduct; and
• regulations for standard form and non-standard contracts.

In addition, regulations to implement Supplier of Last Resort arrangements were proclaimed on 13 May 2005.

Additional information on the RMS and on the customer protection measures can be found on the ERA website.