The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has released the first contribution determination for cost recovery under the under the NSW Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap.
The AER is required to make annual contribution determinations by 28 February each year to set out the costs of implementing the NSW Electricity Infrastructure Investment Act 2020 (EII Act) over the coming financial year.
The total contribution determination amount for 2023−24 is $138.14 million. The amounts required to be paid by each NSW distribution network service provider (DNSP) are:
- Ausgrid $61.45 million.
- Endeavour Energy $48.86 million.
- Essential Energy $27.83 million.
We gazetted our contribution determination on 24 February 2023 as required by the EII Act.
The NSW DNSPs must now undertake the following steps:
- Finalise exemption amounts to be applied to emissions-intensive-trade-exposed entities and green hydrogen producers in line with the Office of Energy and Climate Change’s exemptions framework.
- Allocate their contribution amounts according to their respective tariff structure statements.
The AER expects to receive bill impact information as part of the NSW DNSPs’ annual pricing proposals by the end of March 2023. Upon receipt, we publish these pricing proposals on our website.
Background
We were appointed as a regulator under the NSW Electricity Infrastructure Investment Act 2020 (EII Act) in November 2021.
The contribution determination process is aimed at allowing the EII Act’s Scheme Financial Vehicle to have sufficient funds to meet its liabilities, for example to cover the costs of underwriting new renewable generation or storage investment, network investment and the administration costs of Roadmap entities.
In the National Electricity Rules (NER) context, the Roadmap’s contribution determination is a jurisdictional scheme, and meets the eligibility criteria in the NER as assessed by the AER.
The EII Act’s independent Scheme Financial Vehicle will recover these costs from the NSW DNSPs who are then required to pass the costs through to NSW retailers and ultimately through to electricity consumers on their retail bills.