The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) is seeking feedback on our 2024 Review of the NSW contribution determination guideline about cost recovery under the NSW Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap.
The contribution determination amounts allow the Roadmap’s Scheme Financial Vehicle to have sufficient funds to meet its liabilities, for example to cover the costs of underwriting new renewable generation or storage investment, network investment and the administration costs of Roadmap entities.
Our draft guideline sets out our process and method for how we make contribution determinations under the NSW Electricity Infrastructure Investment Act 2020 (EII Act).
Since the EII Act took effect, we have made two contribution determinations. We gazetted our first contribution determination on 24 February 2023 and our second on 21 February 2024.
Invitation for submissions
The AER invites interested stakeholders to make a submission on the draft guideline by the close of business on 8 August 2024. Submissions should be emailed to: rez
aer [dot] gov [dot] au (rez[at]aer[dot]gov[dot]au) with an email title of ‘2024 contribution determination guideline review – submission’ by 8 August 2024.
Feedback will be used to inform the final guideline, which is to be published in August 2024.
If providing a written submission, we prefer it be publicly available to facilitate informed and transparent consultation. We will treat written submissions as public documents unless otherwise requested.
Background
We were appointed as a regulator under the NSW Electricity Infrastructure Investment Act 2020 (EII Act) in November 2021.
Under the NSW Electricity Infrastructure Investment Act 2020 (EII Act), we are required to make annual contribution determinations to set the amount needed to cover the costs of implementing the Roadmap. The Roadmap’s independent Scheme Financial Vehicle will recover these costs from the NSW distribution network service providers who are then required to pass the costs through to NSW electricity consumers on their retail bills.
In the National Electricity Rules context, the Roadmap’s contribution determination is a jurisdictional scheme, and meets the eligibility criteria in the NER as assessed by the AER.