The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has released a draft report on regulatory arrangements for export service performance. The draft report proposes:
- a future review of incentive arrangements for export services by 2027, once export service offerings have matured as a distribution service.
- enhancing reputational incentives by expanding annual network performance reporting to cover new data on export services.
- introducing a new small-scale incentive scheme that reflect network circumstances, customer preferences and evidence-based performance data.
- a strawman information request to underpin the inaugural export service performance report to be published in late 2023.
- further exploring the materiality of the effect of export services on the benchmarking results and how the benchmarking models may need to be modified in the future.
The AER is also required to review and amend where necessary the Distribution Reliability Measures Guidelines, demand management incentive scheme and demand management innovation allowance mechanism. The draft report recommends that no changes are currently necessary to these guidelines.
Invitation for submissions
We invite submissions on the actions and recommendations outlined in the draft report, including the strawman information request and next steps by Monday, 30 January 2023. Submissions should be emailed to exportservicesreview
aer [dot] gov [dot] au (exportservicesreview[at]aer[dot]gov[dot]au).
Workshop
All interested stakeholders are invited to attend an online workshop on Tuesday, 6 December 2022. Please register your interest (by 'purchasing' a free ticket) on Eventbrite to attend by 29 November 2022.
Background
The consultation forms part of the reforms initiated by the AER to strengthen customer protections and regulatory oversight of export services provided by distribution networks. These reforms follow the Australian Energy Market Commission’s rule change relating to access, pricing and incentive arrangements for consumer energy resources. The Rule change aims to integrate more consumer energy resources such as small-scale solar, batteries and electric vehicles into the grid. The draft report has considered submissions received in response to our August consultation paper.