On 25 June 2014, the Council of Australian Governments’ (COAG) Energy Council submitted a rule change request to the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) seeking to require network distributors to offer the same tariff as a retailer in situations where jurisdictional governments imposed an obligation on retailers to offer a particular retail tariff in their standing offers to small customers.
Consultation paper
As the first step in the consultation process, on 2 April 2015 the AEMC published a consultation paper. On 8 May we lodged a submission in response to the consultation paper which shared the same overall concerns with supporting a rule change premised on making departures from nationally consistent pricing rules, and designed to try and mitigate the impact of these departures.
Draft determination
On 16 July 2015 the AEMC published a draft determination. On 24 August we lodged a submission supporting the AEMC's determination that a draft rule should not be made.