PIAC welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Australian Energy Regulator’s (AER) consultation on Endeavour Energy’s cost pass-through application for the summer 2019-20 bushfires.
PIAC supports allowing Endeavour Energy to recover efficient costs incurred as a result of the bushfires that were not provided for in the revenue allowance and smoothing its recovery from consumers across several years. We expect the AER, as an expert regulator, to determine the efficient and prudent amount to allow and the specifics of how to smooth the recovery.
We discuss approaches to recovering costs for future extreme events and highlight damage to network infrastructure from extreme weather events is likely to increase and that the impact of extreme weather events needs to be considered and planned for across a number of regulated processes.
