On 10 February 2020 the AER released its draft determination on the default market offer (DMO) price for 2020–21.

We have instructed ACIL Allen Consulting to support us in the design of a forecasting approach for wholesale and environmental costs. The report Default Market Offer: Estimating wholesale and environmental costs for 2020–21 by ACIL Allen Consulting is published alongside the draft determination on 10 February 2020.

Due to stakeholder requests we have published ACIL Allen’s modelling data for the cost of energy. The information contained in the modelling data is already set out in the ACIL Allen report for our draft determination. We published this data on 12 March 2020.

On 2 March 2020 the AER released its model for calculating DMO prices for 2020–21.

As set out in the DMO 2020–21 draft determination the AER’s approach is to adjust our 2019–20 DMO price based on forecast changes to wholesale electricity, network and environment regulation costs faced by retailers. Retail costs are indexed by CPI.

The model calculates the expected changes in these costs for 2020–21 for each area and customer type.

The information contained in the model is already set out in the DMO 2020–21 draft determination, however, we are publishing the model to provide stakeholders with additional transparency on how we propose to calculate the DMO prices for 2020–21. 

We invited interested stakeholders to comment on the model up to 17 March 2020. We did not receive any submissions.

We invited written submissions to our draft determination. Submissions closed Monday 9 March 2020.

As part of our consultation on the draft determination we held a webinar on the key points. Participants also submitted written questions that were answered during the session.

The webinar was held on Monday 2 March 2020 and over 50 stakeholders attended. We have published the slides from our presentation.

On 1 April 2020, the AER published a letter seeking stakeholder views on COVID-19 impacts we should take into account in making our DMO determination for 2020-21.

We invited written submissions to our letter on COVID-19 implications for the DMO. Submissions closed Thursday 9 April 2020.