Retail Market Governance

The role of the CER is to regulate and oversee the sustainable development of a retail market for the benefit of all electricity customers. To support full market opening in 2005, the CER approved the design, development and implementation of new IT infrastructure to support the automated processing of all retail market transactions.

These new structures and the market rules and processes surrounding them are referred to as the retail market design. These transactions include the change of supplier process (CoS) as well as all surrounding information and data transfer processes in relation to meter readings, meter works, site details etc.

The Change of Supplier process (CoS) is the central market transaction in the retail electricity market. It is a fully automated process which allows customers to change from one electricity supplier to another. This is managed through a central hub within ESB Networks so that customers switching supplier can do so seamlessly, with no interruption in service and at no direct cost.

Framework for Governance of the Retail Market: Following market liberalisation, the CER consulted on the new arrangements which would be put in place to govern the continued development of the retail market design, in the post liberalisation era.
Design Administrator for the Retail Market: The CER has also appointed ESB Networks as the Design Administrator for the retail market and a separate entity within ESB Networks, called ESB RMDS (Retail Market Design Service) has been established to fulfil this role.
Market Assurance: The CER has put in place structures to ensure that all market participants and customers can have absolute confidence in the change control and message upgrading process for the market design.
Industry Working Groups: The CER has put in place a number of important industry groups to deal with different aspects of the retail market design and market policy.