Australia’s data standards chief Andrew Stevens has named a 14-member committee to deal with building the Consumer Data Right regime within the energy sector. It includes a mix of expertise from the telecom, banking, electricity, and consumer sectors.
The standalone Data Standards Body, which is chaired by Mr Stevens, is charged with all technical standards and interoperability issues related to the roll-out of the CDR, working in conjunction with the ACCC – which has developed and overseas the rules – and the federal Treasury, which manages the legislative program underpinning the consumer data regime.
The Energy Advisory Committee includes startups founders like Finder co-chief executive Frank Restuccia and Xinja chief innovation officer Van Le, and telecommunication executives like NBN Co chief data officer Joanna Gurry.
“We have a cross section of people involved in this committee,” Mr Stevens told InnovationAus.com. “There are some from electricity and EnergyTech, some from banking and FinTech and some from telecommunications – because this is a cross economy-wide implementation.”
It includes three consumer and privacy representatives that also sit on the data body’s Banking Advisory Committee, a reflection of the common interoperability issues across the economy in building an access regime to support the consumer data right.
Mr Stevens said the body had implemented product reference data standards in banking that have been live since July and that testing was now underway in readiness for a February 2020 launch in banking, the energy sector would follow a similar model, and hence the cross-membership of industry advisory board.
The consumer data rights regime in the energy sector was a bigger challenge, if only because the consumer data resided across a different part of the sector.
“The primary difference between the banking and electricity sectors is that [the banks] hold very high proportions of the consumer data that exists, whereas any one party in electricity holds only a portion,” said Mr Stevens, who is also chair of Innovation and Science Australia.
“For example, metering companies hold only meter data and consumption data, retailers hold account data and payment data, and even the energy market operator holds dome settlement-related data – all the elements of which comprise consumer data in the electricity sector,” he said.
“And so the dynamics and constructs of the consumer data and where it resides and how it will need to be accessed is quite different.”
The Energy Advisory Committee was selected by Mr Stevens following a public call for nominations.
The first set of appointments are for a duration of 12 months, although if the Banking advisory is a guide, the committee membership could be extended beyond that period. The initial members are:
- Spiz Dimopoulos, General Manager, Analytics and Insights, Energy Australia
- Peter Giles, Product Manager, CHOICE
- Joanna Gurry, Chief Data Officer, NBN Co
- David Havyatt, Senior Economist, CEO Secretariat, Energy Consumers Australia
- Ben Johnson, Development Manager, ERM Power
- Van Le, Co-founder and Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, Xinja
- Joe Locandro, Chief Digital Officer, Australian Energy Market Operator
- Jan Prichard, General Manager, Customer Care, Origin Energy Limited
- Frank Restuccia, Co-founder, Co-CEO and Director, Finder
- Lisa Schutz, Managing Director, Verifier
- Aakash Sembey, Industry Regulations Manager, Simply Energy
- Edwin Shaw, Head of ICT, Ausgrid
- Lauren Solomon, Chief Executive Officer, Consumer Policy Research Centre
- Dayle Stevens, Chief Data Officer, AGL
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