Submission to the AEMC’s Review of the Retailer Reliability Obligation

PIAC provided a response to the Australian Energy Market Commission’s Review of the Retailer Reliability Obligation (RRO).

Our position is that the reliability regime has moved on from the RRO, and that it should be retired.

The existing toolset available for regulators to manage the issue of predictable wholesale outages is extensive. Retiring the RRO will reduce electricity prices without adversely impacting the reliability of the NEM.

We reiterated our established position that reliability settings should be made with reference to consumers preferences, and noted that the RRO was never designed with this reference point.