The AER has released a revised draft of the Electricity Network Service Provider Registration Exemption Guideline (Draft Guideline) and an accompanying issues paper.
The proposed amendments:
- incorporate a change to the National Electricity Rules for transmission connections via exempt networks with effect from 1 July 2018
- address system security concerns for exempt networks that connect generators of 5MW or more
- introduce ombudsman scheme access for residential customers of exempt networks
- provide further support for the introduction of the Embedded Network Manager on 1 December 2017
- other administrative changes and points of clarification
Invitation for submissions
Stakeholders are invited to provide submissions on the Draft Guideline and issues paper by close of business Monday 15 January 2018.
Stakeholder forum
We will also be holding a multi-site stakeholder forum on the proposed amendments across our offices.
Time: 9.10am - 11am AEDT
Date: Thursday 14 December 2017
Venue: Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, Sydney and Townsville offices
Register your attendance at the forum by sending an email to AERexemptions
aer [dot] gov [dot] au (AERexemptions[at]aer[dot]gov[dot]au). Due to space restrictions we can only accept a maximum of two representatives from each organisation.
Background
All who own, control or operate an electricity network under the National Electricity Law must be registered as a Network Service Provider with the Australian Energy Market Operator or be subject to an network exemption from the AER. The AER can issue exemptions to persons or classes of persons and impose conditions on these exemptions in accordance with the Electricity Network Service Provider Registration Exemption Guideline.
The Transmission Connection and Planning Arrangements rule change requires that we amend the Guideline by 1 March 2018.