The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has today published proposed amendments to the transmission service target performance incentive scheme (STPIS) for consultation.
The STPIS is an important regulatory mechanism that incentivises TNSPs to:
- reduce the number and duration of outages (the service component),
- schedule outages when they have the least impact on wholesale market prices (the market impact component), and
- undertake low-cost projects which improve the capability of the existing network (the network capability component).
The transition to renewable energy sources is changing the way transmission networks operate and invest. In arriving at our proposed draft amendments, we have considered concerns raised by networks and other stakeholders that in its current form elements of the STPIS are no longer working as intended.
Our draft positions are to:
- amend the service component
- suspend the market impact component and as an alternative introduce new transparency measures and explore introducing conduct obligations, and
- amend the network capability component.
We are now seeking your input on our proposed amendments.
Have your say
We will hold a public forum on 10 December 2024 to provide further clarity on the feedback we are seeking, and on our proposed amendments to the STPIS. We invite interested stakeholders to register their attendance.
We invite stakeholders to provide submissions on the draft STPIS by close of business on 3 February 2025.
Submissions can be provided at TransmissionSTPISReview
aer [dot] gov [dot] au (TransmissionSTPISReview[at]aer[dot]gov[dot]au) with subject line “Submission to Transmission STPIS Proposed Amendments”.
Next steps
We aim to complete our review of the STPIS by late April 2025. The amended STPIS will apply to a transmission network service provider (TNSP) at the commencement of the TNSP’s next regulatory control period.