The AER has completed its 2024 review of the cost benefit analysis (CBA) and regulatory investment test (RIT) guidelines and instruments.
Our final amendments to the CBA and RIT guidelines include updates to:
- The existing CBA guidelines
- The existing regulatory investment test for transmission (RIT-T) application guidelines
- The existing regulatory investment test for distribution (RIT-D) application guidelines
- The RIT-T instrument, and
- The RIT-D instrument.
Our updated guidelines and instruments reflect our guidance on valuing emissions reduction, our directions paper on social licence for electricity transmission projects, and the Australian Energy Market Commission’s recent rule changes, such as:
- Improving the workability of the feedback loop
- Sharing concessional finance benefits with consumers
- Enhancing community engagement in transmission building, and
- Bringing forward early works to improve transmission planning.
We developed our updated guidelines and instruments with extensive stakeholder input. Our draft guidelines and instruments were informed by feedback on our consultation paper, on which we received 13 submissions. We also received valuable input from a range of stakeholders during an initial round of public forums in May and June.
We held a further round of forums in August to seek feedback from stakeholders on our draft amendments, and received 12 submissions. We have released an explanatory statement explaining the changes between the draft and final amendments and setting out how we took stakeholder feedback and submissions into consideration in developing our final guidelines and instruments.