As we look ahead to the significant amount of new energy infrastructure that needs to be built in the next decade, we want to ensure transmission projects adequately build and maintain social licence. We want to hear from stakeholders and community to make sure social licence updates to our network planning guidelines are clear, reasonable, and easily implemented.
The AER will hold two stakeholder forums to seek views on how addressing social licence issues are reflected in the Regulatory Investment Test (RIT), and ensure the implementation of enhanced engagement with communities throughout the RIT. The key topics are:
- Identifying credible options in a RIT-T assessment
- Costs and market benefits in Integrated System Plan (ISP) and RIT assessments
- Community engagement
This consultation will provide stakeholders and community an opportunity to ask clarifying questions and provide feedback that will help shape the AER’s development of the renewed guidelines.
We will host an expert forum and a broader stakeholder forum, details below.
The forums will be interactive and held online - they will involve short presentations by the AER, followed by live discussion and polling.
To help people prepare, we will be providing a detailed agenda and pre-reading to registered participants prior to the forums.
Forum details | Registration details: |
|---|---|
Expert forum: this session will assume a reasonable understanding of the network planning framework and focus on addressing queries to assist stakeholders in developing their written submissions in response to questions asked in our consultation paper. We expect consumer advocates, peak bodies and transmission businesses are more likely to attend the expert forum. | 20 May 2024 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm |
Broader stakeholder forum: This session will spend more time explaining the planning framework (including the role of the AER), and use interactive questions to gather stakeholder feedback with the expectation that they won’t make a written submission to our consultation paper. We expect local council representatives, community and environmental groups, and community members will attend the broader stakeholder forum. | 3 June 2024 4 pm - 6 pm (to register for this session, email Isabel [dot] Thompson |
Background:
The forum discussions will relate to our published consultation paper on proposed amendments to the cost benefit analysis guidelines and RIT application guidelines for transmission and distribution. These guidelines provide guidance to proponents conducting a RIT, which is a cost-benefit test that network businesses must undertake before building electricity network infrastructure.
Proposed amendments to the guidelines will only apply to new network projects following the finalisation of this review.
In this review the AER is also updating the RIT and cost benefit analysis guidelines on:
- how to include emissions reductions as class of market benefits, and
- the implementation of recent and open AEMC rule changes