Pursuant to section 11 of the Electricity Industry Act 2010 ("Act"), the Electricity Authority ("Authority") gives the following notice.
N o t i c e
1. Title and commencement-(1) This notice is the Electricity Industry (Exemption No. 144 (Advanced Metering Services Limited)) Exemption Notice 2012.
(2) This notice comes into force on 1 January 2013.
2. Exemption-Advanced Metering Services Limited ("AMS") is exempted from compliance with clause
6(2) of Code of Practice 10.3 of Schedule 10.1 of the Electricity Industry Participation Code 2010 ("Code")
for the certification and recertification of categories
1 and 2 Advanced Metering Installation ("AMI") metering installations.
3. Term-This exemption expires on the date on which the Electricity Industry Participation (Metering Arrangements) Code Amendment 2011 comes into force.
4. Reasons for granting the exemption-The reasons for granting this exemption are:
(a) granting the exemption meets the requirements in section 11 of the Act for granting exemptions;
(b) the exemption will remove potential barriers and allow efficient mass market switches and half hour ("HHR") data settlement for AMI consumers;
(c) meter certification is addressed in the new Part 10 of the Code, and AMI HHR switching is a pending project within the Authority’s retail workstream, but there are advantages for industry and consumers to be gained in the meantime;
(d) the number of Category 1 non half hour ("NHH") installations which will have an installed meter which is certifiable for HHR data is likely to exceed 600,000 before the new Part 10 is in force. The ability to cost effectively certify these installations as HHR now would enable retailers to offer more innovative tariffs at an earlier date, improve the efficiency of the market and take advantage of this existing functionality; and
(e) AMS has stated that it will validate, for each reconciliation read, that the NHH metering information matches in electricity volume the
HHR metering information.
Dated at Wellington this 13th day of August 2012.
For and on behalf of the Electricity Authority:
DR THOMAS BRENT LAYTON, Chairperson, Electricity Authority.