On 21 November 2024, we published final amendments to the Cost Benefit Analysis guidelines and the Regulatory Investment Test (RIT) application guidelines.

These amendments were initiated to comply with recent guidance we have released on valuing emissions reduction, the treatment of social licence for transmission projects and incorporating recent changes from the NER into the guidelines. Further amendments were made in response to the Australian Energy Market Commission's final rule determination on early works.

These final amendments further refine the positions and additions of the draft amendments and incorporate feedback received from written submissions and the public forums. A detailed discussion of these changes can be found in the explanatory statement accompanying the guidelines and instruments.

Our final amendments:

• Refines our guidance on social licence and engagement and improves consistency between guidelines
• Refines our guidance and clarifies accounting for concessional finance, where benefits are shared with consumers in the RIT
• Incorporates the changes to early works as prescribed in the rule change final determination
• Clarifies sections of guidance relating to valuing emissions reductions in the RIT
• Adds other administrative changes and updates, and adds summary tables where suggested by stakeholders.

We made no additional changes to the RIT-T and RIT-D instruments in addition to those present in the draft amendments. We also made no additional changes in the final guidelines from the draft amendments relating to improving the workability of the feedback loop.