By Terry Paddy, Managing Director, Cortexo Limited
What’s the Data Access Bill?
The new Customer and Product Data Bill is a key step in building a smarter, more open energy system. It introduces a Consumer Data Right (CDR)—giving New Zealanders control over their own data and enabling them to share it securely with trusted third parties.
This matters. Because when consumers can easily access and share their usage data in a standardised format, they can make smarter choices. They can find better energy deals, more easily switch providers, and use services tailored to how they live and work.
Why are Consumer Data Rights Changing?
In general terms (and for some time), all retailers allow customers to download their data from their online account. There were always multiple problems with this approach, though. Data formatting differs across retailers; it relies on the consumer personally accessing it (and knowing how), and consumers can’t give a third-party service provider specific access. More importantly, a third party has to build systems to cope with all the retailer formats.
To try solving these problems, the Electricity Authority updated the Electricity Participation Code (the Code) a few years back. This allowed for machine-to-machine data transfer between electricity retailers and consumers (or their agents), but it wasn’t fit for purpose.
Data was shared via poorly formatted CSV files using the file transfer protocol (FTP), both of which are 1970s technologies. Week-long delays are common, and much of the data was simply unusable in a machine-to-machine context. More significantly, this only applies to consumption data, not detailed tariff (pricing) information.
For industry players, it’s left us unable to innovate at pace. For consumers, it’s meant a murky understanding of their options and made changing providers difficult. Consumers don’t want to spend time on this stuff, but they would be happy for machines (or others) to do it. Frankly, it’s been a confusing mess.
We knew we could do better, and now we can.
What Does Improved Data Access Mean for the Electricity Sector?
For the electricity sector, this opens the door to innovation. This may kick off an overhaul of digital technologies and give the electricity industry a needed push into the 21st century. With consumer permission, providers can develop new services that optimise energy use, lower costs, and support decarbonisation. More data. Better insights. Smarter decisions.
For Cortexo, this means our products become more accurate and detailed. This will unlock new insights for our customers to improve energy efficiency, energy consumption and energy supplier pricing. Ultimately, that’s bottom-line savings.
And for New Zealand? This is about building trust, transparency, and a more competitive market—foundations for a more sustainable future. This Bill will enable instantaneous data exchange between the energy sector and other players in the market.
Soon, we will see instant data sharing across electricity distribution companies, generators (including solar), retailers, smart devices, and apps. This then empowers consumers with accurate and updated information for more informed choices.
What Should the Electricity Sector do about Changing Data Access?
What do we need to build this sustainable future? We need to revisit the existing rules in the Code that allow for data access. We need to ensure these are linked to legislation in a streamlined way for innovation. We need to question our decades-old technology. Most importantly, we need to work together.
At Cortexo, we are proactively a part of this discussion. We provided a submission to the Bill last year (view our submission here), and we’re working to be involved in further discussions with MBIE to shape a potential design and implementation of a CDR for our country.
We are also calling for others to be part of the solution. We must take down roadblocks and not wait until regulators push us into action. Our industry has been sent a very clear signal: energy data belongs to the people who generate it. And unlocking that data is key to transforming how we power Aotearoa.
The Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister said last week, “This is a monumental step for Kiwi consumers. It sets up the framework to give them greater ownership of their data, and more power and ease when it comes to shopping around for the best deal on utilities and other essential services” (Hon Scott Simpson).
The Minister expects the Bill to break down the barriers for innovative technology companies, unleashing competition, choice, and growing New Zealand’s economy.
So let’s stop dragging our feet on this.
Let’s innovate together and develop new products to benefit electricity distributors, utilities and the end consumer. The Customer and Product Data Bill is here; let’s get on with it.
