New South Wales based Endeavour Energy and Essential Energy will be the first network businesses to follow the Australian Energy Regulator’s new early signal pathway for revenue determinations for the 2024–29 regulatory period.
This follows both businesses submitting Expressions of Interest to innovate with the AER on its new approach to network revenue determinations, also known as ‘resets’. The AER considered expressions of interest from those lodging reset proposals in January 2023.
The early signal pathway was developed in 2021 as part of the AER introducing its Better Resets Handbook: Towards consumer-centric network proposals and is designed to create efficiencies in the reset process that will benefit consumers in the long term.
Resets are one of the key regulatory processes the AER undertakes to ensure consumers pay no more than necessary for safe and reliable energy.
The early signal pathway will allow network businesses to receive earlier guidance from the AER on their revenue proposal at the issues paper stage, which will enable them to focus on improvements that would make their proposal more likely to be accepted at the AER’s draft decision stage.
The AER looks forward to working with all businesses to apply the Better Resets Handbook principles – working towards a consumer supported proposal that is capable of acceptance at the draft stage.