What does it mean to create a white label retailer?

A white label electricity retailer shares electricity buying and selling activities with a registered and licensed retailer. The white label retailer tends to focus on recruiting customers, designing tariffs and organising electricity billing, while the main licensed retailer takes care of managing interactions with the wholesale electricity market and hedging electricity purchases.

This is an easier way to get started in electricity retailing than creating a retailer from scratch. Creating relationships with households and businesses is something a community group can excel at, so the separation of responsibilities works to your strengths.

Benefits of creating a white label retailer

• You can usually specify where your electricity is sourced from (including negotiating that existing purchase agreements remain).

• You can enjoy bulk purchasing power.

• You can employ local staff to fulfill some of the electricity retailing functions.

• You can create incentives for customers to use energy well.

• You can create relationships with your customers.

• You can use profits in your community or to reduce costs for customers.

• You can support or deliver collective projects like community batteries or community generators.

In short, creating a white label electricity retailer can be a powerful enabler of many community energy activities and provides a core organisation for governance of energy assets and partnerships with important stakeholders like local government and electricity networks.

Some challenges of creating a white label retailer

• You need enough initial funding to establish your systems and start recruiting customers.

• You will need to investigate offers from licensed retailers and negotiate a good business arrangement.

• You need a sound understanding of electricity retailing to manage your ongoing relationship with your licensed retailer.

• You need to quickly recruit enough customers to keep staff employed.

• You need to manage customer complaints and queries to maintain a positive reputation in your community.

• You will still have significant reporting obligations, even though much will be performed by your licensed retailer.

When is creating a white label retailer a good choice?

• You want to control some of the retailing process but you want to grow from a customer base smaller than 20,000 customers.

• You are willing to build an organisation with appropriate governance structures

• You can fundraise or work with others to cover startup and early staff costs

• You are prepared to rely on a licensed retailer to know the details of electricity retailing but you are already quite familiar with the market and regulatory requirements.

• You are confident you can source expertise and support to get started.

• You want to do something that other retailing arrangements could not achieve. for example:

  • Partnering with a retailer to create bespoke tariffs or control batteries and energy uses.
  • Promoting green power or virtual power plants.

An agreement that suits your ambitions

The amount of work you face can depend on where you draw the line between your group and the established retailer. There is some flexibility in the responsibilities you agree to tackle.

The roles to be managed by you are typically the customer focused roles:

• Recruiting new customers to buy their electricity from you.

• Branding and marketing through a website and promotional materials.

• Integrating a customer sign on process that follows all the correct rules for information transparency and moving customers between retailers.

You may also manage all the customer service, enquiries and the hardship policies for when people fail to pay. Even within these roles you need to understand the integration with your licensed retailer’s activities because they will need to manage part of some activities.

Your licensed retailer will have the main responsibility for:

• Interactions with the wholesale energy market.
• Data interactions for market settlements.

Monitoring your purchasing and settlements, customer metering, billing, regulatory reporting are all areas that will involve you to some extent.

Your forecasts about customers and their electricity uses underpin your business model and the agreement you sign. The agreement will define how the risks of purchasing and hedging the correct amount are borne.

Project examples for creating a white label retailer

Energy Locals is the main provider of white label retailing services. You can see some of their partners on this page.

Indigo Power and Cooperative Power both use Energy Locals as their licenced retailer.

Cooperative Power already had experience with cooperatives because many of its members already are coops. It formed a non-distributing co-operative with other organisations as its members. The members must be democratic, member-led organisations like unions, cooperatives or associations.

Indigo Power started in North East Victoria, inspired by local groups like Totally Renewable Yackandandah. Indigo Power is a social enterprise and commits to putting 50% of its profits back into achieving its renewable energy target.

Other guides and resources

Create a retailer.

Our explainer on how electricity is bought and sold.

Our explainer on what electricity bills pay for

AEMC retail regulatory framework- An explanation of the regulatory framework for retailers by the Australian Energy Market Commission

How to register as a retailer- An explanation by AEMO on how to register to purchase electricity from the wholesale energy market.

Template for an Expression of Interest - A sample expression of interest form for a community energy group to use with retailers. It is for a solar garden, but could provide a starting point for other types of project.

Principles for a retailer agreement for a Solar Garden - Outline principles for a Solar Garden to add to a retailer agreement (could be a starting point for other projects).