PIAC made a submission to the Australian Energy Market Commission’s draft rule determination on Expanding the transmission ringfencing framework.
The rule aims to foster competition in the provision of contestable transmission services, such as the provision of connections, by reducing fears held by procurers of these services – generators and storage providers – that monopoly transmission network service providers (TNSP) will discriminate against them if they opt for third party providers instead of the relevant TNSP or its affiliates.
PIAC supports the draft rule change. It broadly conforms to the preferences we indicated in an earlier iteration on consultation.
However, we again noted that there must be a cost to TNSPs who are found to have engaged in discriminatory behaviour.
It is also important to provide generators and third party providers an avenue by which to raise concerns with the AER confidentially about discriminatory behaviour by TNSPs or the potential for it.
Finally, we suggested the AER consider other barriers to competition in the space, most notably the ringfencing settings that currently inhibit distribution network service providers (DNSP) from competing with TNSPs in the provision of contestable transmission services.
