The Government of Western Australia has regulated the sale of electricity to permanent residents living in group housing situations. The form of regulation is a conditional licence exemption.
The electricity sector is undergoing extensive reform to encourage more competition and increased reliability. To provide increased consumer protection in a competitive environment, the Government will licence electricity generators, retailers and network operators, under the Electricity Industry Act 2004.
There are cases where electricity is supplied to, a group housing complex and the owner or manager of the complex then on-sells the electricity to the individual residents. It is not appropriate or intended that these owners and managers will be required to obtain licences under the legislation. However, the Government does have a responsibility to ensure that consumers are provided with similar consumer protection whether they purchase the service directly from a specialist supplier or from the owner or manager of their residence.
The level of consumer protection required is that permanent residents are:
As of 1 January 2006 conditional licence exemptions will be automatically granted to property owners and managers such as corporate bodies, strata title managers, and businesses that are on-selling electricity to people living in some types of residential complexes as part of tenancy arrangements. Examples of such complexes are apartment blocks, retirement and lifestyle villages, and caravan parks (which already have a separate licence exemption).
The licence exemption is automatic and continues while the conditions associated with it are complied with. Residential on-sellers who do not comply with the conditions of the licence exemption will need to apply for a licence from the Economic Regulation Authority. The sale of electricity or associated services without either a licence or a licence exemption is illegal.
These provisions only apply to the supply of electricity to permanent residents (at their principal place of residence) and do not apply to short stay accommodation.
These provisions do not apply to residential facilities where the cost of power is included in the weekly cost of care and accommodation services.
These provisions only apply where electricity is on-sold to residents and not to situations where the corporate body, strata title manager or other site manager is merely coordinating the payment of a joint invoice by collecting the amount owed by each resident as advised by the electricity retailer.
If in strata titled accommodation, electricity meters are not provided to individual residents, then allocation and billing of electricity costs based on unit entitlement is acceptable. However, the use of electricity meters is the preferred method of measuring consumption and charging, where practical.
The Licence Exemptions were gazetted as part of the Electricity Industry Exemption Order 2005 on 9 December 2005. Clauses 5 and 6 only are applicable to the Licence exemptions for residential on-selling of electricity.
Click on the link to download the Gazette excerpt. You will need Acrobat Reader to download this file, download the software for free from http://www.adobe.com.au/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
Information on industry licence exemptions is provided also on this website:
Please direct all enquiries to the Office of Energy, Mr Jeroen (Ron) Gerritsen by telephone to 9420 5612 or e-mail to ron.gerritsen@energy.wa.gov.au
