Feedback received from RoLR Plan participants on the exercise The AER received feedback on the exercise and documents from each category of RoLR Plan participant: energy departments, energy Ombudsmen, registered RoLRs, electricity distributors and AEMO. The key feedback on the RoLR exercise was: Participant feedback AER Response Gas retailers of last resort noted the importance of receiving up-to-date load information of the failing retailer (in de-identified form) as early as possible, in order to advise the AER on whether or not they would need the AER to issue gas directions under section 137 of the Retail Law, and to assist them in planning and forecasting. They indicated that this information would need to be more current than the validated data available to the AER from the Market Information Bulletin Board, which is well over a month old by the time the AER receives it. Participants noted that load data will not have been validated by AEMO. The AER notes that load information is confidential information, and is unlikely to be released by AEMO directly to designated RoLRs until the failed retailer has been suspended from the wholesale gas market. However, Division 3 of Part 8 of the Retail Law enables the AER to disclose confidential information in certain circumstances. In an impending gas RoLR event, the AER will seek up-to-date (ie, unvalidated) load data from AEMO to provide to gas retailers of last resort. Any disclosures that the AER makes will be subject to conditions of confidentiality which retailers will need to agree to prior to receiving any load information. These conditions would include conditions limiting the retailer's use of the information to the anticipated RoLR event, and requiring the destruction of the information if a RoLR event does not eventuate. When the AER first contacts registered RoLRs with offers to seek their advice on whether they are willing to be designated as RoLR for any customers of The AER has amended its templates to ensure that section 137 gas direction issues are addressed in the AER's initial contact with additional and default RoLRs.
retailer's ‘MIRN to customer count’ would be useful. This information assists RoLRs to determine the number of accounts to set up and whether or not there are potentially large multi-site customers being transferred to them. performance reporting RoLR. The AER receives customer count information from retailers on a quarterly basis, which is broken down by residential, small business and large gas customers. While this information will not be up-to-date at the time of any RoLR event, it should provide a reasonable indication of the breakdown of affected customers and the 'MIRN to customer' count. When load and customer information is provided to RoLRs, it would be useful if the AER could also provide information on the commercial and industrial and mass market customer counts. The AER is unable to provide up-to-date information on the commercial and industrial and mass market customer counts, but the information referred to above should assist RoLRs. The "Frequently Asked Questions" advise customers that RoLRs will contact them within a month, however, the AER's RoLR Plan requires RoLRs to use best endeavours to contact customers within 25 business days. The "Frequently Asked Questions" have been revised to advise customers that their RoLR will contact them within the next five weeks. To provide transparency of the activities and notifications that would occur during a RoLR event, future RoLR exercises should be conducted as a round table forum with attendance from representatives across the industry. This would enable the AER to run through the full RoLR process with all participants aware of the activities. Many retailers are not registered RoLRs and have very little exposure to RoLR processes so it is important to maximise the This report is designed to provide some transparency of the activities and notifications that would occur during a RoLR event. The AER will conduct a 'round table' style exercise at one of its future exercises. The AER will give consideration as to whether retailers that are not registered RoLRs should be required to attend. As retailers that are not registered RoLRs have fewer obligations in a RoLR event (such as cancelling customer transfers to the failed retailer, and advising the affected