The head of Australia’s energy market rule maker says contentious proposed reforms to electricity pricing are “not about protecting networks from disruption” – and says she will respect the interests of consumers who have invested in rooftop solar and battery storage.
Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) chair Anna Collyer on Thursday set the scene for next week’s release of the final recommendations of its Pricing Review: Electricity pricing for a consumer-driven future, following consultation on six draft recommendations published in December last year.
The draft included recommendations to axe the “loyalty tax” – the name given to the phenomenon when consumers are unknowingly transferred to a higher-cost version of their retail electricity plan – and to make retailers compete for customers on standing offers.
But the AEMC’s proposal to raise the fixed price component of network tariffs – a move it argues will spread the cost of the grid more fairly among consumers – has dominated debate on the reforms, attracting strong criticism in submissions and on these pages, including here and here.
Critics of the proposal say higher fixed network charges will create a new set of winners and losers, the winners including high-income, high energy-usage households and network companies, with consumers locked in to cover sunk asset costs.
