FarmShare Tariff Trial

Overview

TasNetworks, in partnership with Aurora Energy, is planning a 12-month trial of new billing arrangements designed to enable primary producers with their own generation to offset the electricity they produce against their consumption of energy at other connections on the same property, not just at the point of generation.

The electricity market relies on each connection to a property being metered and billed separately. For most households and businesses with just one connection this system works well. And for many primary producers, the separate billing and metering of each connection on their property works well too.

But for a primary producer with multiple connections on the same property that also has on-site generation, the individual metering and billing of each connection can prevent that business from maximising its use of the electricity it generates. This is because if a primary producer uses electricity at one connection while exporting electricity from another, even though the connections are on the same property, the separate metering and billing of each connection means the business has to pay for all the electricity it uses at the connection which is drawing power from the network.

While the primary producer might earn a feed-in tariff for any energy that they export to the grid to be used by other customers, they could potentially reduce their energy costs by more if there was a way to offset those exports of energy against the consumption of electricity at other locations on their property. This has led a number of primary producers to call for a way to balance their electricity use and generation across all connections on their property, before they have to either buy more electricity from their retailer or export the surplus energy they generate.

The trial

The trial aims to see if participants can manage their electricity use in a way that aligns their consumption of electricity with their generation of electricity, in order to reduce their energy costs.

The following illustration shows how TasNetworks and Aurora Energy plan to enable participants in the trial to offset the electricity they produce and export against the consumption of energy at other connections on the same property.

This is not a process that would be feasible to implement permanently because the systems used to bill customers are not designed to group multiple connections on the same property or combine multiple connections belonging to the same customer.

However, the trial’s billing arrangements will, at least, mimic the arrangements that could be used to apply net metering across multiple connections on the same property, without requiring modifications to systems just to stage the trial. And the monthly bills for each connection will provide a benchmark for participants to compare their electricity costs with during the trial.

Trial term

The trial is expected to commence on 1 July 2025 and run for 12 months. This will provide sufficient time to properly evaluate the experimental billing arrangements and to account for seasonal variations in participants’ energy use and generation.

At the trial’s conclusion, the on-market tariffs and billing arrangements that applied to the primary producers’ connections before and during the trial will continue to be applied, based on the metering data for each connection, but the use of aggregated net metering will be discontinued.

Trial partners

TasNetworks is the proponent of the trial, with Aurora Energy acting as the retail facilitator of the trial. Only metering data for connections on a primary production property for which Aurora Energy is the retailer will be able to be aggregated for the purposes of determining the network (and retail) charges for each primary producer participating in the trial.

Trial participants

A small community of primary producers is required to be set up to test-drive the experimental billing arrangements that are currently under development, with a view to shaping the network tariffs of the future.

While only a small number of participants are needed to make the trial work, it is important to recruit a cross-section of primary producers from across the state to provide diversity in terms of the agricultural activities they are engaged in, their electricity use and the generation they have on their properties.

Apart from monitoring the impact that the trial billing arrangements have on participants’ electricity costs, participants will help TasNetworks and Aurora Energy understand the energy needs of primary producers through their insights and feedback. A key objective of the trial will be to ascertain the extent to which participants are able to manage their electricity use to align their consumption with the energy they generate.

During the trial, participants may be required to participate in a variety of engagement activities conducted by TasNetworks and/or Aurora Energy, including questionnaires, surveys or polls, interviews or focus groups. Participants will also need to agree to participate in accordance with a set of rules that will also govern the involvement of TasNetworks and Aurora Energy in the trial.