ACCC proposal to improve reliability of electricity transmission networks
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today issued draft guidelines for service standards for the regulated electricity transmission networks operating in Australia's electricity market.
"The proposed guidelines will help to improve the reliability of electricity supply to customers by providing incentives for network owners to improve service standards", Mr Ed Willett, ACCC Commissioner responsible for energy matters, said today.
"The ACCC proposes to introduce a performance-based incentive scheme for transmission networks, where service providers will be rewarded for improving service standards and penalised for deteriorating service levels.
"The service provider's performance will be assessed against a number of measures including the number and average duration of outages. If service providers outperform historic benchmarks they are eligible for additional revenues and vice versa".
In developing the draft guidelines, the ACCC sought advice from independent experts and consulted extensively. The ACCC now invites comments from interested parties.
The draft guidelines, decision document and consultancy report are available on the ACCC website.
Media inquiries
Mr Joe Dimasi, Commissioner, (03) 9290 1814
Additional contacts
Mr Ed Willett, Commissioner, (02) 6243 1142
Mr Joe Dimasi, Executive General Manager, Regulatory Affairs, (03) 9290 1814 , or 0408 486 847
The National Electricity Code provides for the regulation of electricity distribution network service providers (DNSPs) and electricity transmission network service providers (TNSP) in the National Electricity Market.
The States are responsible for the regulation of the DNSPs, which deliver electricity to households.
The ACCC regulates TNSPs. The ACCC applies revenue cap regulation using a CPI-X framework. This provides incentives for TNSPs to reduce their cost. Such cost reduction may be achieved through improved efficiencies or may result in reduced service quality, subject to the minimum technical standards set by the National Electricity Code. The performance-based incentive scheme proposed by the service standards was designed to support the technical standards and to improve the incentives offered to TNSPs to maintain their service quality.
