The Code of Conduct for the Supply of Electricity to Small Use Customers (Code) regulates and controls the conduct of retailers, distributors and electricity marketing agents who supply electricity to residential and small business customers. The Code was developed to protect the interests of customers who generally have little or no market power. For this reason, the Code only applies to residential and small business customers who consume no more than 160 MWh of electricity per annum. This equates to an annual electricity bill of approximately $40,000.

The Code was first established in 2004 by the Electricity Reform Consumer Forum. Under the Electricity Industry Act 2004, the Code must be reviewed every two years by a consultative committee established by the omic Regulation Authority (ERA). To this end, the ERA has established the Electricity Code Consultative Committee (ECCC).

Since the establishment of the Code, the ECCC has undertaken two reviews of the Code. The first review was completed in 2007. The ECCC recently completed its second review of the Code. Concurrently with the second review, the ECCC undertook a review of pre-payment meter arrangements under the Code (Part 9 of the Code).

The current Code of Conduct for the Supply of Electricity to Small Use Customers was gazetted on 22 June 2010 and became operational on 1 July 2010. This version of the Code includes both the amendments resulting from the ECCC’s second review and the amendments resulting from the ECCC’s review of pre-payment meter arrangements.

Previous versions of the Code are available here.