Margaret Cooney: Octopus Energy CEO on the Electricity Authority being granted the authority to order harsher fines

Tougher penalties for energy companies caught breaking the rules.  

From next year the Electricity Authority will be able to order fines of up to $10 million, or 10% of a company's turnover – up from the current $2 million. 

The fines can be issued if companies distort the market or take advantage of customers. 

Octopus Energy CEO Margaret Cooney told Andrew Dickens one of the issues with lower fines is that players decide whether or not to comply since they could meet the low-level fine. 

She says it's a high value sector, so it’s totally appropriate that fines have increased. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
The Electricity or Authority has been given an upgrade. The
government has given our energy regulator greater powers to punish
retailers who purposefully decrease competition in the market. The EA
will now have the ability to issue fines of up
to ten million dollars that's up from two million, or
they can find them ten percent of the company's turnover.

(00:37):
They'll also be able to issue spot fines of two
thousand dollars for minor breaches. So we're joined now by
someone who will be affected by this. She is the
CEO of Octopus Energy. Her name is Margaret Cooney. Margaret,
good morning to you morning.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
How are you doing good?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Do you welcome more regulation and more oversight?

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Look, I think increasing the penalties is really important. It
house provide the deterrent that's appropriate in the sector. And
one of the issues with previously having low signs available
for the Electricity Authority to put in place of a

(01:18):
breach is that it means that players could shop whether
they comply or or don't comply, because you know they
could meet that low level fine because when you think
about electricity in a day, there's millions of dollars of
value getting exchange, so it's a really high value sector

(01:41):
and it's totally appropriate that the fines are increased.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Okay, So the Electricity Authority has always had power. The
question is does it ever use it?

Speaker 3 (01:52):
I think that's a really good question. One of the
things that came out of the Frontier Review was that
it highlighted that the electricity authorities monitoring of the sector
needed to be much more robust. So we are also
saying that the that there's a focus from government on
improving the market monitoring that's happening within the EA. So

(02:16):
that's another positive thing that's happening. I think there's still
this question about whether the EA is following through and
effectively interrogating issues in the market. We hope that the
increase in resources, the strong signals from government will give
them the confidence that they really have the backing to

(02:38):
kind of monitor the sector really well and sink their
teeth and when they see there's a problem.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Okay, Now, who's going to be more worried about the
new powers of the Electricity Authority? The Big Four or
Little guys like you Octopus Energy.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Look, I think everyone should respect the need for the
regulator to be well armed to police the sector. Anyone
who's been playing off the rules outside of the rules
should be worried. But I think these should apply consistently
across everyone that's participating in the market, big or small.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Okay. At the beginning of this week, Simon Watts came
on this program and the government announced a new app
to compare and switch energy plans and providers. So what
did you make of it?

Speaker 3 (03:29):
Look, I think the announcement this week was that the
electricity sector is been is going to have new data
access rules, which these will help make new app well,
new apps like believe that the EA is producing in
power swhich they will make them way more powerful and

(03:53):
easy to use for consumers. So it will mean that
rather than the poor customer having to drag out their
bill and saft round with things, they'll be able to
immediately get their half hour data kind of plugged in
in real time to these apps so that they can
provide an accurate estimate for the customer about what is

(04:16):
the best plan for them. So we're taking these are
all great moves that allowing sites like Passwitch or Billy
to have better quality data access and not just use
estimates will ultimately help consumers make better decisions and save
more money.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Margaret Cooney, I thank you so much and I gave
her an upgrade herself. She's not the CEO, she's the COO,
and she's from Octopus Energy.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
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