In Australia, a household that wants a cheaper power deal can hand its actual electricity use to a switching service and let it do the rest. A company like One Click Switch takes your real usage data, pulled straight from your power account through Australia’s Consumer Data Right, compares it against plans from retailers such as Origin, AGL, EnergyAustralia and Alinta, finds the best fit and arranges the switch for you. It is free to the customer because the power companies pay a fee when you move.
New Zealand is building the foundations for the same thing. A new law, the Customer and Product Data Act 2025, lets the Government open up the data that banks and power companies hold about you so that trusted third parties can use it on your behalf. Banking went first in December 2025. Electricity is next, and the key decisions are being made this year.
How it works in Australia
Australia switched on its Consumer Data Right for energy in late 2022. Since then, customers in the National Electricity Market, which covers the eastern and southern states, have been able to authorise an accredited business to receive their electricity data and act on it.
The data that can be shared goes well beyond a single bill. It includes your meter details, your actual consumption, your billing and payment history, and the plans and tariffs available to you. With that information, an accredited service can work out what you really spend rather than relying on a rough estimate. One Click Switch is one such accredited data recipient, using the Consumer Data Right to pull your usage and match you to a better plan. Your power company holds most of this data, while the market operator AEMO holds the technical meter records behind the scenes.
It is worth being clear about one limit. The part of the system that would let a service complete a switch entirely on your behalf, known as action initiation, became law in Australia in 2024 but has not yet been turned on. For now the data right makes comparison accurate and fast, while the final switch still relies on your authority.
Why Australia’s system has struggled
Building the rails turned out to be easier than getting people to use them. Take-up of the data right has been low and the cost of complying high. By the end of 2023, only a fraction of one percent of bank customers had an active data-sharing arrangement, and energy has faced the same slow start.
In December 2025 the Australian Productivity Commission told the Government to fix the regime in banking and energy before expanding it any further, by stripping out the rules that make sharing complicated and cutting compliance costs. The lesson for New Zealand is plain. A data right only matters if ordinary people actually use it, and that depends on making consent simple and the benefit obvious.
What is changing in New Zealand
The Customer and Product Data Act 2025 received Royal assent in March 2025. It is framework legislation, closely modelled on Australia’s approach, which means it sets up the system and then turns on one sector at a time through regulations.
Banking was the first sector. Regulated open banking went live on 1 December 2025 for the four big banks, with Kiwibank following through 2026. The Government has since confirmed that the retail electricity sector is next. Under MBIE’s Open Electricity work, power companies will become regulated data holders that must share standardised data through secure connections, at no charge, whenever a customer gives clear consent.
In plain terms, you will be able to tell a comparison website or app to collect your power use and pricing data straight from your retailer, rather than digging through old bills yourself. The Government is due to make decisions on the detailed rules around the middle of 2026, with the new requirements expected to take effect around 2027. Those dates are still indicative until the regulations are finalised.
What it means for your power bill
The most immediate prize is easier switching. New Zealand already has a free comparison service in Powerswitch, run by Consumer NZ, but it works best when it can see what you actually use. Today that usually means typing in figures from a bill or accepting a rough estimate. With your real consumption flowing through automatically, a comparison becomes far more accurate, and the kind of concierge service that is common in Australia becomes possible here.
The benefits go further than a one-off switch. Detailed usage data makes it easier to match a household to a time-of-use plan, to see whether solar panels or a home battery would pay off, and to size up the cost of charging an electric car at home. The more an app can see about how and when you use power, the better the advice it can give. You can already watch the bigger picture of how the country generates its electricity on our NZ Grid Live map.
How hard it is to get your data now
About nine in ten New Zealand homes now have a smart meter, which records usage in half-hour blocks, so the data already exists. The problem is getting hold of it. The meters themselves are owned by metering companies, your power company holds the consumption records and must supply up to two years of history on request, and the Electricity Authority runs the registry that ties it together.
For a third party trying to help you, the current process is slow and inconsistent. It involves getting your authorisation, registering for access, submitting set forms and waiting several working days, with each retailer setting its own rules. There is no single place to pull the data from. Removing that friction is exactly what the electricity designation is meant to achieve.
The risks to watch
Opening up personal data brings obvious concerns. The system has to keep your information secure, make consent genuine rather than a box you click without reading, and resist scammers who will try to mimic an official data-sharing request to harvest your details. Regulators also want to move people off insecure workarounds, such as handing over your login so a service can scrape your account.
The other risk is simply that nobody uses it. Australia has shown that a data right can be built at considerable cost and then sit largely idle. If New Zealand wants a different result, the consent process needs to be quick and the savings need to be real and visible.
When it will happen
The shape of the electricity rules should become clear after the Government’s decisions around the middle of 2026, with power companies expected to be ready to share data under the new system from about 2027. Banking is the template, and how smoothly that beds in over 2026 will tell us a lot about what to expect when our power data finally becomes ours to share.
Common questions
What is the Customer and Product Data Act
It is New Zealand’s version of a consumer data right. The Act, passed in 2025, lets the Government require banks, power companies and other businesses to share the data they hold about you with accredited third parties when you give consent. Banking was designated first, followed by retail electricity.
Will this make switching power companies easier
That is the main goal. Once your real electricity use can be shared automatically, comparison services can give a far more accurate picture of which plan suits you, and switching becomes quicker and less of a chore.
When will the electricity changes take effect
The Government is expected to decide the detailed rules around the middle of 2026, with power companies likely to be sharing data under the new system from about 2027. The exact dates are indicative until the regulations are finalised.
Would you trust an app with your power use data if it found you a cheaper deal? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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