PIAC made a submission to the Australian Energy Regulator’s (AER) Export tariff guidelines exploratory paper.
In this submission we noted that the purpose of cost relfective network tariffs is to allow retailers to respond to price signals about efficient network costs and help consumers efficiently manage their electricity use, generation, and storage. Accordingly, retailers should be the primary target for cost reflective network tariffs rather than consumers themselves. Exposure to cost relfective network tariffs provides the scope for retailers to offer more choice to their customers with products either passing through the cost signals or offering simpler, flatter pricing to customers who value predictability and stability.
As such, PIAC recommended the use of mandatory tariff assignment to ensure that retailers see cost relfective network tariffs and have an incentive to work with customers and offer innovative retail price options that better reflect consumers’ concerns and preferences.
