News Topic ID

Power of Choice and other energy market reforms

14 October 2014

SPEECH BY COMMISSIONER NEVILLE HENDERSON AT 2014 EUAA CONFERENCE

13 October 2014

I’d like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to their elders both past and present.

Can I also thank Phil Barresi, CEO of the Energy Users Association of Australia for inviting the AEMC to address you today and pass on my apologies that Chairman John Pierce cannot be here.

When John spoke at this conference last year – which I’m sure many of you attended, he talked about some of the key drivers of electricity price rises in recent years – environmental policies and investments in the distribution network, principal among them.

He also talked about the strategic priorities of the Australian Energy Market Commission and some of the work under way as part of the Power of Choice reforms, which hold promise for both small and large energy users.

Twelve months later, there has been significant change for our sector in terms of policy and regulation which affect energy prices.

It can be helpful to think about those things which affect energy prices as grouped into three broad areas.

The competitive sectors in retail and generation;
The regulated distribution and transmission network; and
Other policies which sit in non-energy portfolio areas – mainly environmental policies – that impact on the energy sector.

In terms of the latter, the carbon tax has been removed and we are knee-deep in a public discussion about the future of the Renewable Energy Target.

In terms of the distribution network, the AEMC’s new rules governing how the Australian Energy Regulator will approve network revenue are starting to be implemented and we are seeing networks engaging with consumers, large and small, directly on their investment plans.

We have also just seen the Federal Government’s Energy Green Paper, which will no doubt see in some changes for the energy sector.

So reforms to the electricity market therefore continue to move forward and this has been helped by the governance model that has developed since the inception of the National Electricity Market.

As most of you know, the AEMC is the rule maker for most parts of the supply chain across electricity and natural gas.

We also provide advice to governments on energy market development, based on Terms of Reference provided to us by the COAG Energy Council.

We do not initiate our own rule change requests and instead rely on requests from governments, market participants and indeed any other party who sees an issue to be addressed.

So the remit of the AEMC and other market institutions, including the AER and AEMO, covers the first two of these three elements impacting prices – the competitive sectors and network regulation.

There are some clear advantages to this governance model, particularly in the clarity of roles and responsibilities across the different institutions. It does however mean that the delivery of rule changes can be tied to the timeframes and deliberations of other market institutions.

The Power of Choice reforms are a good example of what this means in practice.

The final Power of Choice report and proposed implementation plan were provided to the COAG Energy Council for their consideration in November 2012.

This included a range of recommendations to improve demand side participation in energy markets. The five rule change requests that came out of the Power of Choice Review took about a year to be agreed upon and submitted to the AEMC.

And once we receive the rule change requests we undertake a thorough process of consultation and engagement to make sure that all stakeholders have a chance to contribute to the debate.

This generally involves Consultation Paper, public forums, targeted stakeholder workshops with further consultation on a Draft Determination, before a Final Determination is made.

These sorts of timelines can sometimes frustrate those keen to see reforms progressed quickly.

The Commission shares the eagerness of many, including the EUAA to see the potential of the Power of Choice review realised.

The principle behind the review – to give energy users, including commercial and industrial consumers, choice, and allowing those choices to drive energy market development – continues to motivate the AEMC’s priorities and work program.

Today I’d like to focus on a few of the key reforms coming out of the Power of Choice review – changes to how distribution network tariffs are determined and expanding competition in metering and related services.

As I mentioned earlier, the overall amount of revenue networks are able to recover has been dealt with in earlier rule changes, particularly, the rule change in relation to Economic Regulation of Network Service Providers in 2012.

As you will remember, these changes related to the rules governing how the maximum revenue a network business recovers from all consumers is determined by the AER.

The changes included a new rate of return framework that is common to electricity distribution, electricity transmission and gas.

It requires the AER to make the best possible estimate of the rate of return at the time a regulatory determination is made, taking into account market circumstances, estimation methods, financial models and other relevant information.

The AER is required to undertake an open and consultative process at least every three years to develop its approach to setting the rate of return.

The new common framework also enables the regulator to take a range of different approaches to estimate the return on debt component, potentially allowing for reduced risk for debt financing for network businesses.

And importantly, it removes ambiguities regarding the powers of the AER to interrogate, review and amend capital and operating expenditure proposals submitted by network service providers.

The AER’s authority in this area has withstood Tribunal review, so you as consumers can feel confident that a robust regulatory mechanism is in place so that total revenues collected are appropriately determined.

Building on this, the rule change we’re working on currently – changes to distribution network pricing arrangements – looks at how that revenue is recovered. Making sure that the structure of network tariffs is helping to send efficient price signals back to consumers and in the process removing cross subsidisation between consumers.

Big energy users like many of your businesses tend to have a sophisticated understanding of their energy use largely due to the size and significance of that cost to running their business.

You’re probably also aware of the significant proportion of your bill that is made up of network charges.

Manufacturing, commercial and industrial, and electricity, gas water and waste services, are responsible for around 63 per cent of Australia’s electricity use.

Most if not all of you have interval meters so you are aware of how and when you use power. What has been missing is the ability to use the information you receive from your meter to influence that large bucket of network charges.

The price signals you currently receive are largely ‘muffled’ by a distribution network pricing structure which is not cost reflective.

Under current price structures, energy users pay the same network price even if the costs of such usage vary by location and time, regardless of how or when they are using power.

Existing network prices over-recover revenue for off-peak use of the network and under-recover for peak use.

This means energy users who use most of their energy at off-peak times are paying more than it costs to supply network services to them – while those using energy at peak times are paying less than it costs.

As an example, a residential consumer using a large 5kW air-conditioner in peak times will cause about $1,000 a year in additional network costs compared with a similar energy user without an air-conditioner.

But this residential consumer with the air-conditioner pays about an extra $300 under the most common network prices.

The remaining $700 is recovered from other consumers, big and small, through higher network charges.

Our Draft Determination on distribution network pricing will create the conditions for network prices paid by individual consumers and businesses to better reflect the cost of providing network services to them. It will allow more efficient price signals to emerge, removing cross subsidisation and giving 5 energy users the information they need to decide what technologies might work best for them to manage usage, and help reduce their energy costs.

We have analysed the impact of the changes to distribution network pricing arrangements on residential customers. That analysis estimates that up to 81 per cent of residential consumers would face lower network charges in the medium term under a cost-reflective capacity price and up to 69 per cent would see lower charges under a critical peak price.

The next piece of work, which we have recently commissioned, looks at the likely impact on business – particularly larger commercial and industrial energy users.

We do, of course, have some relevant experience to draw on – Ausnet already offers flexible pricing for network services in their distribution area in Victoria.

If you’re a business with a relatively flat load profile you should see lower network charges, reflecting the lower demands you place on the grid.

And some energy users will choose to respond to new network price structures by further reducing their use of the network at peak times, which will reduce overall network costs, with savings passed on to them.

The AEMC’s draft rule also sets out new processes and timeframes for setting network prices to improve certainty, timeliness and transparency for consumers and retailers. This should help businesses plan their expenditure more effectively and avoid bill shocks.

The Commission fully appreciates the eagerness of this sector – the EUAA and its members – to see this rule change progressed.

There have been claims by some that no concrete action is planned for the short term. That is wrong.

A final determination on this rule change is due to be published in November. This will include a phased implementation plan to give industry and consumers time to adjust to the change, with the new rules to be implemented progressively between next year and 2017 in all jurisdictions, depending on when regulatory determination cycles occur.

Linked with the distribution network changes, is another Power of Choice building block, aimed at creating opportunities for a competitive energy services market.

We don’t necessarily know which technologies will develop in the future or how they will be used, but we know technology will empower all consumers and help drive innovation and change.

And it will do that best if there is competition in the market for these products and services.

The rule change to promote competition in metering and related services, along with the open access and common communications standards framework for smart meters, as well as arrangements to allow multiple trading relationships at the consumer’s connection point - these reforms will all work together to provide energy users a greater armoury of tools to respond to market signals and make decisions about the best and most efficient way for your business to consume energy.

A discussion paper on the competition in metering and related services rule change is currently online and we’ve just completed a series of stakeholder workshops as part of that consultation process.

I’d like to turn now to the third area I identified earlier as influencing energy market outcomes – the integration of policies outside the energy portfolio.

Governments legitimately have a range of policy objectives in addition to energy policy objectives.

The Renewable Energy Target does not need to be designed in a way that negatively interferes with the goal of efficient markets.

The desire to encourage renewable generation need not be at the expense of the wholesale market.

The RET in its current form is not able to adjust to prevailing market conditions.

As demand has fallen, new renewable capacity has continued to be developed. Falling demand in an efficient energy-only wholesale market like the NEM would signal to generators that no new capacity is required. The RET however provides an incentive for additional build.

In this sense the RET has shifted the risk allocation in the National Electricity Market.

Prior to the RET, generators bore the risk of their assets being under-utilised by falling demand.

Generation built under the auspices of the RET does not bear that risk which instead has been transferred to consumers in the form of retailer compliance costs.

The effect of this has been to create a disconnect between retail and wholesale prices. So there is a wedge between retail and wholesale prices, where the former has increased given the obligation on retailers to procure renewable certificates, while the latter prevents the appropriate demand-side response and ultimately the efficient clearing of the wholesale market.

In our submission to the RET review, we proposed two possible solutions.

First, moving the RET to a floating target, as opposed to a fixed GWh target. This would shift the allocation of demand risk away from consumers and more appropriately share it amongst investors – renewable and thermal – who are better placed to manage such risk and profit from efficient decisions.

The Commission believes this is a more sustainable approach, allowing the RET to better integrate with the structure of the National Electricity Market.

An alternative we put forward is to Transition the RET to an emissions intensity based scheme for the electricity sector.

This scheme could be designed in a number of ways, including where generators below a defined emissions intensity level create certificates that generators above the level are liable to purchase.

Retailers and other liable entities under the current RET scheme would not participate directly.

This type of approach would encourage all lower emissions technology options, not only renewable energy, and is therefore likely to meet any emissions reduction target at a lower cost – and that means lower energy bills for small and large consumers.

Both options would provide a viable path forward and greater certainty for large energy users.

Finally, I want to update you on the AEMC’s work in relation to gas markets.

Promoting the development of efficient gas markets is one of the AEMC’s strategic priorities.

There are major structural shifts occurring in gas as we ramp up to LNG exports from Gladstone.

Given these developments, last year the AEMC initiated a scoping study to consult with stakeholders and identify areas of potential improvement in the market and regulatory arrangements.

One of our key findings was the need for an integrated gas market development plan within which the industry can work towards achieving a mature and well-functioning market.

This would help build certainty around what the LNG export developments mean for the domestic market and the direction that gas market development should take in response.

An important part of this work will be to consider the future role and objectives of the gas trading hubs on the east coast, including possible reforms to trading hubs which might increase the ability for market participants to manage risk and in turn facilitate greater trading and liquidity.

Over time, we expect that this type of gas market development work will lower barriers to entry in these markets and promote greater competition by providing gas users with additional options for sourcing their gas.

We are engaging with governments and stakeholders to support a gas market framework which continues to promote efficiency and competition.

The last twelve months really has seen substantial change in the energy sector and there is much to be optimistic about.

Some changes to environmental policies are having an immediate dampening effect on energy prices. While others are still being determined but we are hopeful of a decision that supports efficient market outcomes.

I believe we are making headway in getting a more reasonable approach to approvals of distribution network revenues, and the removal of cross-subsidies in network tariffs.

Change can be good if it’s relatively predictable and its objectives widely understood.

Ultimately that is what I think the AEMC, through its work with governments and stakeholders, is trying to achieve – a pathway forward and a sensible and sustainable set of policies and rules which are predictable, coherent and work together, or integrate, to encourage competition in the energy sector.

I look forward to continuing to work with the EUAA and its members to promote the development of robust, competitive markets that will continue to support the vital contributions that your businesses make to the Australian economy.

Thank you.

ENDS

Register now for stakeholder workshop on competition in metering and related services rule change

25 September 2014

Registration is now open for the AEMC’s fifth stakeholder workshop on the competition in metering and related services rule change. The workshop will be held in Melbourne on 9 October 2014 and will discuss:

transitional arrangements for Victoria;
governance of the minimum functionality specification;
the proposed jurisdictional arrangements; and
requirements for the implementation of the competitive framework.

To register for this workshop, please contact Claire Richards at claire.richards@aemc.gov.au or on (02) 8296 7800, by 3 October 2014. Further information about the workshops is available on the project page

A consumer driven market

19 September 2014

SPEECH BY COMMISSIONER JOHN PIERCE AT 2014 NEM FUTURE FORUM

A consumer driven market: the next chapter in a national productivity improvement story

19 September 2014

DOWNLOAD PDF VERSION

Thank you for being here today to discuss the future of the National Electricity Market.

Before we begin, I’d like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to their elders both past and present. I’d also like to acknowledge:

Keith Orchison, our Chair today, and
All our other speakers.

I’ve been asked to speak about where the national energy market is now, and where it’s headed in the future.

As a Commission, we are in a sense quite agnostic about the future. We are not in the business of making forecasts of demand, prices, relative costs and technologies.

In performing our role, we don’t need to, because ultimately it will be consumers doing what consumers do – making consumption decisions based on the price and service options available to them – that will drive the way the sector develops.

But where we are now?

The National Electricity Market has been on a fairly consistent reform path over the past 25 years or so.

I don’t intend to give a history lesson today, but briefly: the reform of the energy sector was part of a major period of economic reform kicked off in the 80s, which included reforming a set of capital intensive utility services such as energy, communications, transport and water, whose performance was not supporting long term economic growth to the extent that it could.

These assets were state owned, centrally organised and monopolistic.

Since then, the story in our sector has been one of separating policy and regulatory functions from industry; industry restructuring; and bringing competition to the sector.

A key characteristic of the old industry structure – and one that makes what we have today in the competitive generation and retail sectors different – is where demand and investment risks fall and the way they are managed.

It is in fact how these risks are allocated between consumers and businesses that determines whether ‘what we have’ deserves to be called a market at all.

Numerous reports and reviews dating back to the 1986 McDonell and 1988 Curran inquiries in NSW, through to the Western Australian Economic Regulatory Authorities’ report on that State’s wholesale electricity market published last year, show that wherever you have a central authority determining how the sector is to develop – how much investment is to occur – how much capacity is to be built or procured based on fallible forecasts of the future – the costs of getting these decisions wrong rests with consumers.

For the future of the sector to be driven by consumers deciding what is of value to them, one of the prerequisites is that demand and investment risks are managed by businesses, operating in a workably competitive market.

You don’t need to believe – though you may choose to – that people making investment decisions based on forecasts of the future working within an AGL or Origin or Alinta, are any better at foretelling the future than people – possibly the same people – working within a central authority. The point is the risk allocation, the way it’s managed and the associated incentives are different.

We have come a long way but there is, of course, work to be done.

We have clearly commenced a new stage where the NEM’s development is driven by consumers making choices about the way they source and use energy.

The measures set out in the Commission’s Power of Choice reform package, and the reviews of retail competition, which included proposals to address the way distribution tariffs are structured that are now at the Draft Rule stage, are about facilitating consumers move from the “back seat” to the “driver’s seat” – giving them better information and tools to make informed choices about their energy consumption.

A key question though is will they find it a comfortable seat and a pleasant experience?

Consumers – that is, people – need to be as comfortable making choices about energy as they are picking items off the supermarket shelf.

When you think about the process of choosing products at a supermarket, a consumer is able to scan a shelf, run their eye past the Tim Tams, the Iced Vovos, the Mint Slices (a personal favourite), the Scotch Fingers, and all the while weighing up taste, quality, price, your attempt to be virtuous with respect to diet. And pretty quickly narrowing it down to a couple of options – the Iced Vovos and the Mint Slices – and buy both.

Granted energy is a little more complicated than that, but fundamentally we want to get to a place where consumers are as comfortable making decisions about energy as they are other products and services, where competition and choice is taken for granted.

And to do that people need information; they need tools; they need to be engaged; they need a reason to be engaged; and they need the price they pay for energy to reflect the cost of supplying them, as individuals.

Together, the AEMC’s Power of Choice reforms and the lessons from our reviews of retail competition are key to achieving these objectives.

One of the Power of Choice building blocks is the distribution network pricing rule change, which aims to have network prices paid by individual consumers better reflect the cost of providing network services to them.

Currently, even if the total costs of network services is at efficient levels, many individual consumers pay more than the costs caused by their usage, because of the way network prices are structured. Other consumers, in particular those that use a greater proportion of their energy at peak times, pay less than the costs caused by their usage.

Existing network price structures over-recover for off-peak use of the network and under-recover for peak use. In the draft rule determination, we include a number of case studies to explain this.

By way of example a consumer using an average size north facing solar PV system will save themselves about $200 a year in network charges compared with a similar consumer without solar.

Because most of the solar energy is generated at non-peak times, it reduces the network’s costs by $80, leaving other consumers to make up the $120 shortfall through higher charges.

The same consumer could reduce network costs considerably and align with the savings they receive, by facing their panels west, generating more energy 4 at peak times when it is most needed. That is, less energy in total, but more when it is most valued.

Under the existing network pricing arrangements, the consumer has no incentive to do so as they benefit more by generating more total energy throughout the day.

Equally, a consumer using a large 5kW air-conditioner in peak times will cause about $1,000 a year in additional network costs compared with a similar consumer without an air-conditioner.

But the consumer with the air-conditioner pays about an extra $300 under the most common network prices. The remaining $700 is recovered from all other consumers through higher network charges.

In both examples, some consumers are paying more than it costs to provide services to them, and others less.

The objective of the changes set out in our recent Draft Determination is that network prices paid by individual consumers better reflect the cost of providing network services to them, as individuals.

This will allow consumers to make more informed choices about what energy services they value.

It will also give consumers the information they need to decide what technologies might work best for them to manage their usage, and help reduce their energy charges.

From a market and overall system point of view, it will mean consumers' choices are the driving force behind market development and investment and provide the conditions for a more effective and competitive energy market.

Of course it’s one thing to create the market conditions for choice, but consumers also need the tools to respond to market price signals.

Another important Power of Choice building block is creating opportunities for a competitive energy services market.

It goes without saying that consumers use of technology will be a huge part of the process in driving change and market development in coming years.

We don’t necessarily know which technologies or how they will be used, which is precisely why the Commission’s policy work is agnostic about technological development, but we know they will drive innovation and change and the system must be flexible enough to respond to that change.

The rule change to promote competition in metering and related services; the open access and common communications standards framework for smart meters; arrangements to allow multiple trading relationships at the consumer’s connection point; and measures to improve the switching process – these reforms will all work together to help the energy services market evolve in a way that supports consumer choice.

So how might we predict the future for the National Energy Market?

My advice is to follow the consumer.

They’re in the driving seat and technology is propelling them very quickly in relatively unpredictable ways.

Increasingly, they’re expecting engagement. Not only to be consulted on industry and regulatory activity but to actively participate in the energy market.

So in terms of how the Australian Energy Market Commission sees the energy market of the future, we don’t plan to bet on any single possible future.

Instead, we want a system which is flexible enough to respond to the increasingly sophisticated and diverse demands of consumers, which allows their choices and preferences to drive market development.

But, we won’t get there if we start fiddling with the way energy is bought and sold (the means of exchange) or if there are policy interventions in the market that undermine its operation and the ability of price to reflect underlying demand and supply conditions.

So let’s talk about capacity (so called) “markets”.

There has been increased chatter in recent times suggesting that there may be a case for a fundamental redesign of the wholesale energy market – a move to a capacity (so called) “market”.

This, at least in part, appears to be motivated by the current disconnect between wholesale and retail prices and generation oversupply.

The WA energy market is a good local example of the problem with capacity markets and the WA Government is currently grappling with what to do about the problems they cause – predominantly higher risk and generally higher prices for consumers.

The WEM is typical of other capacity markets in that it relies on a central authority to predict and procure generation capacity.

If your system requires an omnipresent, all knowing being – let’s call him or her ‘god’ – to understand a system completely, have perfect powers of prediction and to know what capacity should be set to match future demand, the only thing you can perfectly predict is that god will be wrong.

In reality, typically in capacity markets our omnipresent, perfect bureaucrat will contract or regulate for too much supply, because that is the rational thing to do given the incentives god faces.

And when he or she gets it wrong and over contracts, the consumer pays.

That is certainly the case in WA. It was the case in the “olden days” of the state-based utilities. The consequence of this type of structure is that demand risks fall on consumers.

We’ve well and truly moved away from this era in the NEM – indeed as I’ve spent most of today’s speech talking about, we are headed in exactly the opposite direction.

So the message to those intending to fiddle with the development of a consumer driven energy market and revert to the risk allocation of the old days is a simple one – you are heading in the wrong direction.

Part of the underlying issue here of course, is the impact of bringing together the way the energy market works with the particular way the Renewable Energy Target is designed.

In effect, because the RET sets a specific GWh target, its risk allocation is the same as a capacity (so called) “market”.

These issues of the interface between the two have always been there, but have only become more evident with the drop off in demand growth.

Governments legitimately have a range of policy objectives in addition to the traditional energy policy objectives.

That’s why we have elected governments to specify policy objectives. But in achieving these different objectives we must be careful, wherever possible, not to jeopardise the achievement of one to the benefit of another.

When contemplating the effective integration of energy and environmental policy, it is important to design a mechanism to achieve an emissions reduction objective that preserves the means of exchange and allocation of risk in energy markets. Because these are the characteristics that make the energy market, a “market” in the first place.

For the NEM to be an effective market, it must be able to respond to changes in demand driven by consumer preferences, changes in technology and other factors, like relative prices, which cannot necessarily be predicted.

For a policy to be sustainable there needs to be a reasonable opportunity to adapt to material changes in market conditions, in a consistent manner.

Robust policy positions should not be predicated on one particular view of the future.

For environmental policy like the RET to be sustainable, investors also need a level of confidence that policy objectives can be met and are sufficiently robust to adjust to changes in market conditions.

It is due to the divergence in the risk allocation mechanisms in the energy market on the one hand, and the current RET design on the other, that we proposed, in our submission to the RET review, moving the RET to a floating 20 per cent target in 2020, as opposed to a fixed GWh target.

The important point is not even the level at which the target is set – let’s call the target “X” – it’s that it is “X per cent” of whatever demand happens to be.

This would shift the allocation of demand risk away from consumers and more appropriately share it amongst investors – renewable and thermal – who are better placed to manage such risk and profit from efficient decisions.

While consumers are going to drive much of the change we experience in the energy market in the coming years through their demands and preferences, we also have to make sure the benefits flow to all consumers.

And we must ensure some consumers don’t get lost in the change and the increasing diversification of the sector. This involves a massive communications challenge.

In May this year, the Commission held its first strategic priorities forum with consumer representatives in order to deepen our relationships with consumers and their advocates as we consider the agenda ahead of us.

Consumer engagement was right at the top of the list of issues we are dealing with, particularly ensuring they having full information about contracts, offers and changes related to new flexible pricing structures.

Equally significant to consumer groups was the impact of energy prices, along with the importance of consumer protections, particularly those that support more vulnerable and low income consumers.

So we need to be able to respond to those concerns about ensuring all consumers benefit from greater competition, and respond to concerns about the necessary consumer protections needed into the future.

Many consumers need the information and confidence to become more engaged in shopping for energy. Our Consumer Engagement Blueprint for the review of competition in NSW energy retail markets recommended strategies to achieve this, including:

providing information to consumers that uses different channels to target specific consumer segments as well as the broader community,
refinements to existing comparison tools so that consumers have a trusted source of advice that allows ‘apples for apples’ comparisons, many of which are already being considered by the AER, and
providing additional support to consumers that need it.

And many of these reforms are being rolled out with some good results.

For example, it was encouraging to see in our recent report on competition in retail electricity and gas markets that 90 per cent of all consumers were aware they could choose their energy company, up to 40 per cent had actively investigated options, and up to 28 per cent had actually switched during 2013.

Consumers are shopping around for better gas and electricity deals more often than they are switching insurance companies, or phone and internet providers.

New retailers are entering markets and winning customers with discounts and other incentives, with conservative estimates of savings from $60 to $240 or more a year, depending on where they live and how much electricity they use.

The other aspect of the communications challenge is to understand that there are an increasing number of already engaged consumers – energy literate consumers – who want an entirely different energy product compared with what has been provided to them in the past.

So as we embrace the challenge of responding to diverse needs – from highly energy literate consumers, to more traditional consumers, to vulnerable consumers – it will be important to have a market that is flexible and able to respond to diversity and range of possible future scenarios.

In the years to come, the structure of the energy sector may be quite different to the one we see today.

The increased interest of new technology providers in our sector has the potential to reshape the way we think of an energy services provider.

The increased use of electric cars, the uptake of home energy management systems and technologies, and other possible demand game changers, which may work in completely opposite directions.

All this has the potential to change the face of the energy sector.

The focus of the AEMC – the agnostic AEMC – is to care deeply about the future and develop the NEM into a market that is flexible and able to respond to whatever the future holds.

Thank you for listening and enjoy what promises to be a fascinating day’s discussion.

ENDS

A consumer driven market

19 September 2014

SPEECH BY COMMISSIONER JOHN PIERCE AT 2014 NEM FUTURE FORUM

A consumer driven market: the next chapter in a national productivity improvement story

19 September 2014

DOWNLOAD PDF VERSION

Thank you for being here today to discuss the future of the National Electricity Market.

Before we begin, I’d like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to their elders both past and present. I’d also like to acknowledge:

Keith Orchison, our Chair today, and
All our other speakers.