On 2 August 2022, the AER released a position paper to initiate the second stage of the annual pricing process review. We are seeking views from interested stakeholders on our standardised pricing models, the content of pricing proposal documents, the annual pricing timelines in the first year of a regulatory period, and the application of the side constraint mechanism.

Stakeholders were invited to make submissions on the Annual Pricing Process Review position paper by 2 September 2022. We received the following submissions.

We received the following submissions after 2 September 2022.

To address issues raised in the submissions, we held two online stakeholder workshops.

The first workshop covered the stakeholder usage of outputs, pricing proposal content and presentation, pricing model revisions, and year 1 pricing areas of the review.

A slidepack from this workshop is provided below.

To address issues raised in the submissions, we held two online stakeholder workshops.

The second workshop covered the side constraint mechanism.

A slidepack from this workshop is provided below. We have also updated the worked scenarios workbook for additional scenarios 4a, 4b, and 4c.

On 17 November 2022, we released a final position paper on the side constraint mechanism. This paper sets out our final position on the side constraint mechanism for use by distributors in their upcoming regulatory proposals.

In December, we intend to release a final position paper on stage 2 of the annual pricing process review.

On 16 December 2022, we released a final position paper on stage 2 of our annual pricing process review. This paper sets out the outcome of the second stage of our review.

This final position paper is accompanied by a Statement of Compliance, revised pricing model and price-capped ACS pricing model templates, and revised handbook to accompany the models. We have included a version of this handbook which includes tracked changes relating to revisions within stage 2.

These documents and models will be used by the AER and electricity distributors in the upcoming 2023–24 annual pricing process.