PIAC responded to the AER’s issues paper regarding Ausgrid’s, Endeavour Energy’s and Essential Energy’s revenue and tariff proposals for the 2019-24 regulatory period. PIAC argued that the AER and distribution businesses should consider affordability as an explicit constraint on all investment and regulatory decisions.
More specifically, PIAC stated that:
• The AER should not approve proposals that include price increases;
• The AER should not approve capex plans that result in growth to regulatory asset bases;
• The AER should require businesses to explicitly identify the consumer benefits of all investment programs in revised proposals;
• The AER should not approve proposals that do not assume opex productivity growth; and
• The AER should require businesses to rapidly transition to cost reflective tariffs, ideally demand tariffs.
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