The Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission (ICRC) quietly released an issues paper as part of its review of the Consumer Protection Code on Thursday.

It heard many people had no idea the code - which sets out minimum service standards expected of utilities providers, and the rebates customers are entitled to if those standards are not met - even existed.

If a water and sewerage utility fails to give customers at least two business days' notice of a planned interruption, affected customers are entitled to a rebate of $50 per day. If electricity and gas distributors fail to give customers four days' warning, they also must pay a $50 per day rebate.

If the distributor fails to respond to an outage that could cause significant damage or affect public health, they must respond within six hours or pay out a $60 per day rebate (to a maximum of $300).

In all other cases, the distributor has to respond within 48 hours or pay out the rebate.

Utility providers must also respond to complaints within 20 business days, or customers are eligible for a $20 per day rebate.

Customers can also claim a $60 per day rebate to a maximum of $300 if they are not connected to the utility within a day of requesting supply.

A $20 per day rebate is available if a connection is not restored within 12 hours of an unplanned interruption.

Over the five years to 2016-17, figures reported to the commission show across the three major utilities, the minimum standards were not met on 2901 occasions by Icon Water, 2517 occasions by Evoenergy's electricity branch and 1381 occasions by its gas branch.

Despite each of these failures to meet minimum standards potentially allowing Canberrans to claim between $20 and $60 a day in rebates, just 10 rebates were claimed, from Icon Water, in the entire period from 2012-13 to 2016-17.

The monopoly water supplier paid those 10 in 2012-13, plus an additional 58 rebates for customers without a formal claim being lodged, and one more in 2014-15, at a total cost for the utility of $2720; though it did not pay any rebates in 2015-16 or 2016-17.

None of Evoenergy's gas customers claimed any rebates in the five year period, and it paid out none voluntarily despite 1381 failures to meet the standards.

Despite none of Evoenergy's electricity customers making any claims for rebates, that branch of the corporation did pay for rebates for some 282 customers over the five years, costing the utility $14,597 in the same period.

An Evoenergy spokewoman said its staff always told customers who called about matters related to minimum service standards that they were eligible for a non-compliance rebate, even if they were not aware of its existence.

All of Evoenergy's gas failures were due to not responding to a fault [those unlikely to cause harm] within 48 hours, while its electricity branch largely failed to provide notice of planned interruptions four business days beforehand.

The electricity distributor's next biggest failure to meet the standards was due to unplanned interruptions not exceeding 12 hours, though it also failed to record any data on fault reports and response times for both 2012-13 and 2013-14.

For each category of failing to meet the standards, the vast majority of Icon's failures were due to not responding to a fault within 48 hours, or resolving the problem within the time specified in the response to fault reports.

Stakeholders told the commission many customers did not know about the code, minimum service standards, available rebates and the process for receiving a rebate.

While standard connection contracts for new customers make references to customers being entitled to minimum service standards, only one of the market contracts offered by the ACT’s three retailers mentions the consumer code.

Icon Water and Evoenergy both pointed out information about the rebates is available on their websites, however it is not easy to locate and is contained in a vague "customer service charter".

The Evoenergy spokeswoman said they would review their website in the wake of the paper, while a spokeswoman for Icon Water said they were meeting their obligations with the existing website.

Icon also said it placed "great importance" on minimising disruptions to customers.

It fully complied with the six-hour response time for all faults deemed likely to have the potential for public health impact or serious harm in the last four years, and on average it responded to 89 per cent of non-urgent inquiries within the required timeframes, the Icon spokeswoman said.

Evoenergy also said it was reducing the number of instances where performance standards were not met, pointing to a drastic fall in 2016-17.

Clarification: One reference in this article previously referred to Evoenergy as the retailer. The article has been corrected, as Evoenergy is the distributor.