The Australian Government has indicated to the AER that it will adopt the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) recommendations 30, 49, 32 and 50 in its retail electricity price inquiry (REPI). Specifically, the Government has asked the AER to develop by 30 April 2019:
- default market offer (DMO) prices, which are to apply from 1 July 2019 for standing offer customers on relevant tariffs, in network distribution regions not subject to state-based price regulation.
- a mechanism for determining a reference bill amount for each network distribution region, from which headline discounts can be calculated.
The DMO prices will also serve as a basis for calculating the reference bill for residential customers and small businesses.
On 9 November 2018 we published a position paper setting out our process timing and initial views on our approach to determining DMO prices. We invited written submissions on our position paper which closed on 7 December 2018.
We held a public forum on our DMO position paper in Sydney on 5 December 2018.
We released our draft DMO Prices Determination on 23 February 2019. We invited written submissions on our draft determination which closed on Wednesday 20 March 2019.
On 15 March 2019, we published the draft legislative instrument to accompany the draft determination for consultation. Submissions closed on 25 March 2019.
On 30 April, we published our Final Determination on default market offer prices for 2019-20. The legislative instrument has also been published and lodged on the Federal Register of Legislation.