PIAC responded to the Australian Energy Regulator’s (AER) consultation on valuing avoiding Widespread and Long Duration Outages (WALDO) as part of its Values of Customer Reliability work.
We support the intent to value the impact of WALDOs but do not consider the proposed methodology is appropriate to be used in significant decisions regarding energy system planning and investment.
We outline a number of issues with the methodology, including that the measures of social and wideness costs are arbitrary and using them may result in consumers paying for reliability well above their preference.
We also raise a fundamental issue with the social costs of a WALDO being shouldered by consumers.
