CDR and automatic tariff updates

What is CDR?
Consumer Data Right (CDR) is an Australian government initiative that grants consumers the right to easily access their data, enabling them to have more control and make informed decisions when comparing products and services. Initially introduced in the banking sector, CDR has now been extended to the energy sector as well. To learn more about CDR, you can find additional information here.

How is Solar Analytics using CDR?
In a few different ways:

• To provide consumption data for customers who don’t have consumption/smart meters. Find out more.
• To provide automatic tariff updates
• To provide support for controlled loads
• To provide support for demand tariffs

This page is about the second use case.

Who’s eligible?
Similar to our Integrated+ product, customers must be in the NEM states of Australia (QLD, NSW, VIC, ACT, SA, TAS) to access automatic tariff updates, and their energy retailer must have made their data available via CDR. See a dynamic list of supported retailers here.

How does this impact your customers?
Solar owners have told us that they want accurate and simple analysis of savings to understand their energy bills, track their payback and maximise their savings. However, most solar owners don’t want to spend time manually updating the tariffs in Solar Analytics. This means that their electricity bills, savings etc will automatically be tracked using their current electricity tariff, and their Plan Optimiser and battery recommendations will always be up to date.

What are the benefits for your customers?

• Energy plan details and tariffs are automatically entered, saving time and hassle
• Automatic updates when there are changes to your plan
• More accurate solar savings calculations
• More accurate analysis with Plan Optimiser to find the best energy plan

When will it happen?
Customers who are using our Integrated+ product (i.e. getting their consumption data via CDR) will automatically have their plan details updated. 

In 2024 we will work with retailers to roll this feature out more widely. Once it’s made available, eligible customers will be able to opt in using the ‘Add plan automatically’ button on their My Electricity Bill page.

How does this affect me?
Only solar owners who provide consent and select automatic plan updates via their dashboard will trigger this service. All CDR/Open Energy services have strict data sharing restrictions and limit data access, as defined by the ACCC, which means that we are prohibited from sharing this data with non-accredited parties (including solar retailers). We are working with the ACCC to allow energy insights for retailers using this CDR data. 

Solar retailers will not be able to see financial outcomes that use this automated tariff data. This includes savings and electricity bill tracking, and detailed Plan Optimiser savings (you will instead see Plan Optimiser Lite, which provides colour coded savings instead of dollar figures).

Why can’t my customer see their energy plan details?

1. The plan update was rejected because it was missing some info (e.g. we have seen instances of Origin plans missing feed-in tariff rates).
2. The plan update was rejected because it’s a plan type that Solar Analytics don’t currently support e.g. stepped import rates / mixed of stepped and time of use feed-in tariffs / mix of single and TOU rates / TOU controlled load
3. The customer has switched energy retailers — in that case they will need to revoke and re-grant permission to share data with their new retailer.

To revoke and regrant permission, they will need to click on the manage consent button available on their My Electricity Bill page, or under Settings > My Site.

How can I tell which plan is manually entered and derived from CDR?

CDR-derived plan will have a “CDR” badge on the plan in My Electricity Bill page.

If there is no badge, this means that this is a manually entered plan by the Owner.