Use cases for an electricity sector Consumer Data Right

CDR use cases (with data acquisition)

Choosing an electricity plan / comparing plans

For example, Becca (a household consumer) wants to choose the cheapest electricity plan specific to her. She doesn’t have the time to check all the retailers’ websites or call centres to find out what they can offer her. She wants her half hourly consumption data to be accessed by a trusted third party that provides comparison and switching services and will use tools to compare her usage and match her with the cheapest electricity provider,

Load shifting

For example, Eric, a retiree who uses more power during the day and little at night wonders if there are things he can do to reduce his power consumption. He seeks advice from a trusted third party who examines his half-hourly consumption and advises him how to shift more of his use to off-peak times and move to a time-of-use plan. He puts a timer on his hot water so it only heats at night and changes his behaviour to heat his house in the late afternoon instead of the evening, cook his main meal in the afternoon and schedules his laundry and dishwashing to late at night. These changes reduce his power bill.

Budgeting advice

Meredith wants budgeting advice to help her cut costs and tackle debt. She knows that her electricity bills are a significant portion of her household costs, particularly in winter when she needs to keep her home warm for her health, but she is unsure how to budget them over the year. She wonders about whether she’s on the best power plan but is worried she might make a mistake and switch to something that’s more expensive, making her household budget even tighter. Therefore, she consents to her data being shared to a trusted third party and to their budgeting specialist who has been helping her plan her budget for the year considering bill differences between summer and winter. The budgeting service can also check her consumption patterns across the day to look for opportunities to shift her usage and save even more with the right power plan.

Information for advisors

For example, the Wellington City Council run a community budgeting help service, where Jane can sit down with a retired accountant, Sharon and they go through Jane’s income and expenses and help plan Jane’s cash-flows so that she spends money on what is most important to her. Sharon isn’t an accredited requestor so cannot access Jane’s bill history. On Jane’s authorisation Powerswitch gets Jane’s consumption data and sends it to Sharon to be used to formulate the budgeting advice. Note: CDR would not have a role in Jane asking Powerswitch to share her consumption information with Sharon.

Thinking about home generation

John wants to install rooftop solar and a battery, but he is unsure what capacity would make economic sense or whether combining it with a battery bank would also be sensible. It would be a big investment up front, so it is important he makes the best decision. He consents to his data being shared with an accredited requestor who combines this with information about his roof, house site and location to find out if solar is right for his household and if the investment would be worth it.
New retailers and new service offerings – A new retailer wants to offer its services to a particular region in New Zealand; they request all the product data from retailers in that region and price their electricity plans to compete with incumbents. This leads to greater competition and more product offerings for consumers in that region.

Community initiatives

 A rural community group wants to see if it is worth combining their individual solar generation and use to see if they can save money as a group. They ask a trusted third party to look at their consumption and generation patterns as a group. The information tells them that in their case it would be financially prudent for them as a group to:

• set up an electricity network connecting dwellings
• install more shared solar generation and battery capacity; and
• install high-efficiency systems for shared community assets such as their hall and swimming pool.

CDR Use cases (without data acquisition)

New products and services

For example, an electrical engineering business sees a change in the electrical retail market to more people shifting to time-of-use pricing. The firm invests in development to build better devices that make it easier for households and businesses to shift their consumption in ways that take into account their specific needs.