Suppliers of electricity lines services are subject to the regulatory provisions under subpart 9 of Part 4 of the Commerce Act 1986 (the Act) from 1 April 2009. Electricity lines services are defined in section 54C of the Act. Electricity lines services are supplied by electricity distribution businesses (EDBs) and Transpower New Zealand Limited (Transpower).
EDBs are subject to:
- information disclosure regulation; and
- default/customised price-quality regulation, however suppliers that are “consumer-owned” (as defined in section 54D of the Act) are exempt from this type of regulation.
Transpower is subject to:
- information disclosure regulation; and
- price-quality regulation after the expiry of Transpower’s administrative settlement.
The type of price-quality regulation to be applied to Transpower is yet to be determined and will be the subject of a recommendation from the Commerce Commission to the Minister of Commerce.
Subpart 9 of Part 4 also contains transitional arrangements. These apply to certain breaches of the thresholds previously set by the Commission under Part 4A and administrative settlements accepted by the Commission in respect of these breaches before 1 April 2009.
Other relevant legislation
In addition to the above, the electricity industry is subject to the other provisions of the Commerce Act and the Fair Trading Act 1986.
The Commission also has both an enforcement and adjudication role in the electricity industry under the Electricity Industry Reform Act 1998.