On 1 March 2011, the AER introduced a three stage process as part of its monitoring and enforcement of non-compliant offers, bids and rebids in the National Electricity Market. The Compliance Bulletin was silent on how the AER would treat portfolio bidding performed by the same trading team.
The AER recognises that relevant participants may, through their parent company structures, employ a common trading team to conduct the bidding of multiple generation assets in the same portfolio and those assets may, in some instances, be registered as separate relevant participants or exist as legal entities separate from the parent company.
The AER has now amended Compliance Bulletin No. 3 to make it clear that, for the purposes of administering the three stage process and issuing warnings, the AER will rely on the cumulative count of non-compliant bids for all generating units under the same portfolio, irrespective of whether these generators are different registered participants or exist as separate legal entities.
The warning process established under the AER Compliance Bulletin does not automatically result in the issuing of an infringement notice nor does it preclude the AER from issuing an infringement notice to a participant against any of its non-compliant offers, bids or rebids.
The amendments to the Compliance Bulletin are effective immediately.