The AER decided to defer releasing draft Annual Information Orders while we addressed the issues raised on the preliminary Annual Information Orders. We published and sought feedback on the draft Annual Information Orders on 7 December 2023, and expect to issue the final Annual Information Orders in March 2024.

We made this decision after considering feedback from stakeholders across a wide range of issues raised in response to the Preliminary Orders. We have also considered the high volume of activity facing all participants in the energy sector.

The deferral of the draft Annual Information Orders has the key consequence of delaying the application of the Orders until the 2024–25 reporting year. We are now proposing the Orders will apply for the reporting years from 2024–25 to 2027–28. This outcome is supported by the regulated electricity networks and will allow more time for changes in their reporting processes and systems to be developed, as well as more time for information requirements to be refined. The AER notes that current information reporting obligations will remain in place for the 2023-24 reporting year, minimising the risk of ‘data gaps’ arising in our existing information requirements.

The deferral also applies to the draft Annual Information Notice being prepared for Power and Water Corporation.

The AER has commenced a review of the information it collects from and about regulated electricity networks. 

The Networks Information Requirements Review Discussion paper (Discussion paper) below provides context for the review and describes the issues on which the AER seeks feedback. The Discussion paper also sets out the Review process and articulates limits to the scope of the Review. 

On 21 April 2022, the AER held an online public forum to enable stakeholders to ask questions about the Network Information Requirements Review before submissions closed on 6 May. 

Energy consumers and other interested parties were invited to make submissions on the Network Information Requirements Review discussion paper by 6 May 2022. We received the following submissions.

We have created 10 data categories to describe the range of data we collect. To facilitate stakeholder with their detailed review of our data requirements, each data category is presented below in a consultation workbook. This has been done for both distribution and transmission. As one of the data categories (Customer Numbers) does not apply for transmission, there are 19 workbooks presented below. 

Section 3 of the discussion paper describes the set of consultation workbooks we have developed. These consultation workbooks provide a mapping to the current suite of excel templates used to collect data and include definitions, validation rules and crosschecks. 

We have developed our data requirements from existing RINs and information requests, as well as some new data requirements.