On 18 December 2018, the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) published the transmission annual planning report (TAPR) guidelines to support the consistent provision of information by transmission businesses across the National Electricity Market. The information requested in the TAPR guidelines will complement the TAPR documents published on 30 June each year.
We developed the TAPR guidelines under clause 5.14B.1 of the National Electricity Rules. This follows from the transmission connection and planning arrangements rule determination, made in May 2017.
The TAPR guidelines encourage transmission businesses to provide generators and large transmission customers useable and consistent information they need to make informed connection decisions. This information will also assist non-network service providers in offering non-network solutions to identified transmission needs. More broadly, this information will allow interested parties, including electricity consumers and their representatives, to better understand network planning and engage with how investment decisions are made. We will also use this information to inform our revenue reset assessments.
The TAPR guidelines complement our other work in this area, which has included:
- Collaborating with transmission and distribution businesses to drive improvements in their TAPRs and Distribution Annual Planning Reports (DAPRs), including by forming improvement action plans.
- Publishing the System Limitations Template (also known as the DAPR template). Similar to the TAPR guidelines' objective for transmission businesses, the System Limitations Template improves the consistency and useability of distribution businesses' DAPRs.
- Initiating a replacement expenditure rule change (made in 2017) that requires network businesses to provide information on all planned asset retirements (and de-ratings that lead to a network need) in their TAPRs and DAPRs. This has lead to ongoing work with network businesses and Energy Networks Australia's asset management committee to foster a consistent approach on conducting risk assessments to demonstrate efficient asset retirements.