Before the commencement of the National Electricity Law and Rules, the National Electricity Market (NEM) was governed by the National Electricity Code (the code). Certain provisions of the code could potentially result in a contravention of Part IV of the Act. For this reason the National Electricity Code Administrator (NECA) sought authorisation of the code and of subsequent amendments to the code.
Certain gas market arrangements also required authorisation, including the Victorian gas market operations rules. Details of authorisation decisions made by the ACCC in the energy sector are available on our Authorisation Register.
Access to electricity network services
Prior to the establishment of the Australian Energy Regulator, the ACCC accepted access undertakings from electricity network service providers. You can view access undertakings from transmission and distribution network service providers on the Access to services register.
Under the access arrangements in place at the time, network service providers made access to their networks available in accordance with the NEM access code. The NEM access code (see below) consisted of all provisions of the National Electricity Code except chapter 3.
Access code further variation—24 June 2005; Decision - June 2005; Variation - March 2004; Decision - January 1999; Decision - September 1998.
Access to gas pipelines
From 1 July 2008, under the National Gas Law, the AER became the economic regulator for covered natural gas transmission and distribution pipelines in all states and territories (except WA). As the AER is a constituent part of the ACCC, for administrative simplicity, all ACCC documents relating to the ACCC’s former gas transmission regulation function have been maintained on the AER website.
The Eastern Gas Pipeline is currently not covered, however, the ACCC did assess an access undertaking over 1999-2000.
The ACCC may still potentially be asked to assess gas pipeline access undertakings from uncovered pipelines, but all covered pipelines are now dealt with through the AER.
Energy market submissions/correspondence
Some of the ACCC’s key energy-related submissions/correspondence prepared by the ACCC prior to the establishment of the AER are available below. Visit the Submissions page of the AER website for details of the AER’s current work on energy market reform.
