As Australia’s regulatory landscape evolves and maintaining compliance is becoming increasingly complex, Brave Energy is helping businesses stay ahead with smarter, more responsive solutions.
Many energy businesses operate under an assumption that compliance must be built into their core business systems – designed into platforms like billing, CRM and metering from the outset.
While this approach may seem logical, it can become limiting for Australian energy market participants, particularly those working with international software providers. The fact these systems are often developed for larger overseas markets means Australian regulations are unlikely to be considered in the base design.
The cost of getting it wrong and falling foul of regulators is high, and it’s a key reason leading software provider Brave Energy is committed to helping the sector stay in compliance.
Recent breaches in Australia have resulted in record-setting fines, a trend that is expected to continue as more regulatory changes impact all areas of the country’s energy market.
Both the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) and the Essential Services Commission (ESC) in Victoria have broad enforcement powers.
Beyond monetary penalties, they can revoke or suspend licences, make legally binding agreements to remedy breaches and subject companies to court action and injunctions.
They may also publicly report compliance breaches on public registers or through media releases, leading to potential reputational damage.
However, the AER and the ESC also play key roles in shaping the future of energy policy, aiming to create stronger consumer protections and compliance frameworks.
A new regulatory mindset
With 20 years of experience in the Australian energy market, Brave Energy is familiar with the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of the industry.
The company said it has noticed a significant shift in regulatory strategy in recent years, from reactive enforcement to proactive oversight.
This includes an increased focus on using data analytics and risk profiling, and targeted strategies to address the areas of greatest regulatory risk, like life support registrations, hardship, disconnections and billing accuracy.
Brave Energy said it is seeing a trend of retailers being encouraged to self-report breaches, which is reflected in annual reporting on areas such as wrongful disconnections, embedded networks and life support protections.
Strengthened consumer protections are also shaping the regulatory landscape. The company pointed to the ESC’s Payment Difficulty Framework and Life Support Registration Guidelines as examples of the greater regulatory emphasis on customer protections.
Transparency is another tool being used more frequently to drive compliance, according to Brave Energy.
Regulators are publishing comparative performance reports covering billing errors, complaint rates and disconnections on retailers, alongside public registers of breaches, naming non-compliant companies and detailing the actions taken against them.
Collaboration is increasing, too. Regulatory bodies like the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) are engaging with consumer advocacy groups, retailers and metering companies.
The goal is to co-design rules that are fit for purpose and enforceable, especially as the market navigates the integration of distributed energy resources (DER), smart meters and digital platforms.
With all of this in mind, the dilemma facing energy market participants is how to minimise the cost and complexity of compliance without compromising the ability to choose the best fit systems for their operations.
If businesses weren’t limited to software with compliance pre-built, how would their IT strategies change? Could they choose from a broader range of systems without being locked into rigid regulatory frameworks?
If you asked Brave Energy, the company would say the solution is decoupling compliance from core business systems. Rather than built-in compliance, the company advocates for centralised compliance.
Brave Energy believes this approach ensures consistent rule application, eliminating the risk of different systems interpreting rules in different ways.
But what does this look like in practice?
Centralising compliance
Compliance as a service (CaaS) is an emerging best practice solution in heavily regulated industries such as energy. These models, Brave Energy said, are all about modularising, centralising and automating compliance logic, so it can be reused across systems.
Indeed, Brave Energy’s CaaS operates as a centralised engine of microservices that manages compliance requirements on behalf of other systems, such as billing, CRM, metering and customer portals.
Rather than embedding rules in each system, Brave Energy’s CaaS module:
- maintains the latest regulatory rules, whether related to general market communication or specific mandates like best offer messaging, life support registration or customer data right compliance
- applies configurable business logic with rules based on specific requirements, such as a customer’s eligibility for disconnection
- uses smart automation for key compliance processes such as customer consent logging, life support registration checks and disconnection warning periods
- enables the addition of validation rules to ensure data integrity, preventing non-compliant actions such as disconnecting customers in hardship without proper review
- logs and audits all decisions, with reporting dashboards providing real-time visibility into risks such as bill correction timelines or missed life support registrations.
Regulation in the energy market is expensive. However, the cost of getting it wrong is significantly more expensive.
A key benefit of CaaS systems is that they are less expensive to maintain; instead of adjusting every downstream system when rules are changed, only the central module needs to be updated. They’re also faster and easier to implement, with streamlined API integrations.
Importantly, CaaS models enable businesses to be more responsive. Whether it’s a new billing rule from the ESC or updated life support protections from the AER, regulation changes are rolled out centrally, keeping businesses compliant with every new rule change.
Local expertise
Founded 20 years ago by two Australian energy industry experts, Brave Energy helps businesses in the sector meet compliance challenges head on.
As a proudly Australian company, Brave Energy possesses extensive expertise in the local energy landscape, honed over its decades serving the industry. All of the company’s solutions meet Australian energy industry regulations and compliance requirements.
Brave Energy combines deep industry knowledge and a passion for software development to provide intuitive and reliable software that accurately captures and automates data, allowing energy market participants to rapidly adjust to regulatory changes and streamline market interactions.
Trusted by some of the country’s largest energy players, Brave Energy allows energy businesses to automate complex regulatory processes, reduce risk and stay ahead of the constantly evolving market.
For more information, visit braveenergy.com.au or chat with the team at booth D2 at Australian Energy Week from 18–19 June at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
