The Market Liquidity Obligation (MLO) placed on Market Generators seeks to facilitate transparency and liquidity in the trading of future electricity contracts relating to a forecast reliability gap. This will ensure there are contracts available to smaller market customers by requiring certain generators in each region to make contracts available to the market.
The MLO commences when the Retailer Reliability Obligation (RRO) is triggered and provides a source of qualifying contracts for liable entities to purchase to help meet their RRO contracting requirements.
From 1 July 2021, the AER is required to establish, maintain and publish a MLO register in accordance with the MLO Guidelines. The register will identify the various generators and other groups required to perform the MLO in participating NEM regions.
To assist with the development of the MLO Register, all Market Generators are required to provide detailed information about ownership and trading rights of their scheduled generation units.
Today the AER published the MLO information template that specifies the information that must be provided by all Market Generators. The AER will use this information to determine which generators and groups will be required to perform the MLO from 1 July 2021.
The National Electricity Rules require generators with scheduled generating units to provide the requested information to the AER by 31 January 2021.
Background
The RRO commenced on 1 July 2019, providing stronger incentives for market participants to invest in the right technologies in regions where it is needed, to support reliability in the National Electricity Market.