Welcome to TasNetworks' 2024-2029 revenue reset

Between 4 December 2023 and 19 January 2024, the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) welcomed submissions from interested stakeholders, customers and members of the public on their Draft Decisions for TasNetworks’ Initial Proposal, and TasNetworks’ Revised Proposal.

A total of 13 submissions were received (12 during the consultation period, and one outside) from the following stakeholders:

• 4C energy
• ABEL Energy
• Andrew Bowen
• Aurora Energy
• Australian Energy Regulator Customer Challenge Panel
• ENTATAS
• RECURRENT ENERGY
• Reset Advisory Committee
• Salvation Army Housing Tasmania
• TasRex
• Tesla Motors Australia
• Tasmanian Renewable Energy Alliance
• Tasmanian Small Business Council.

A total of 27 different topics were noted across the 13 submissions, with the full range of topics by submission captured in the table below. The five most mentioned topics were:

1. Benefits (customer, community, economy)
2. Tariffs
3. Contingent projects
4. Engagement
5. Bill impacts/affordability.

This is the final public consultation before the AER releases its Draft Decision in April 2024. The new regulatory control period commences on 1 July 2024. Queries regarding these submissions should be directed to the AER by emailing aerresets2024-29@aer.gov.au. Queries regarding TasNetworks' summary of these submissions or the broader revenue reset engagement program should be sent to revenue.reset@tasnetworks.com.au.

We are delighted to announce the submission of our Revised Proposal to the Australian Energy Regulator, detailing the funding we need to deliver safe, reliable and efficient electricity services to Tasmanians for the 2024-2029 regulatory control period for both transmission and distribution networks.

>> Download our Revised Proposal documents below <<

Revised Proposal (full)

Revised Proposal (Snapshot)

Supporting documents
The full submission, including models, will be available from the AER’s website in December. In the meantime the following key supporting documents are available for download:

• Contingent Projects overview report
• Tariff Structure Statement
• Tariff Structure Explanatory Statement
• Transmission Pricing Methodology
• Distribution Connection Pricing Policy

The Revised Proposal has been shaped by feedback from our customers and stakeholders in the most diverse and comprehensive engagement program we've ever completed, including direct engagement with over 830 individuals on 60+ topics over a 2.5 year period.

Acknowledging that households and businesses are experiencing increasing cost of living pressures, the Revised Proposal reflects our commitment to provide Tasmanians with clean and reliable power as safely and affordably as possible. Customers also told us they want proactive investment in renewables, consistent reliability across the state, and a transparent commitment to sustainability.

Distribution customer highlights Transmission customer highlights

Next steps

The AER will now review our Revised Proposal. Their Final Determination in April 2024 will outline how much we can spend on our networks, as well as the network charges we can apply during the new regulatory control period (2024-2029). We welcome your feedback on our Revised Proposal, either directly to us or through the AER's official submission process, available on their website here.

To our customers and stakeholders...

We extend our sincere thanks to every customer and stakeholder who has invested their time, thoughts and expertise into the development of not only our Revised Proposal, but the preceding documents (Draft Plan and Combined Proposal). We have heard your voices and we are committed to ongoing genuine and transparent engagement with you.

How to get in touch with us

Email: revenue.reset@tasnetworks.com.au
Phone: 1300 555 727
Web: tasnetworks.com.au

TasNetworks formally launched the Annual Planning Report 2023 (APR) to interested stakeholders on Friday 3 November 2023.

The APR is available for download now, in both full and summary versions:

• Full APR
• Summary APR

Updated annually, the APR is a living blueprint - outlining how much electricity we expect our customers to use and where, current and emerging challenges for the network for the next ten years, along with any actions we need to take to ensure we continue to provide Tasmania with safe, reliable and affordable electricity.

Materials from the forum are available here, including the presentation and summary report.

Feedback welcome
Comments, questions and enquiries are welcome regarding this important document, particularly from those interested in discussing opportunities to participate in demand management or other innovative solutions to manage network limitations. Contact us by emailing planning.enquiries@tasnetworks.com.au

We are pleased to announce that we have received our draft decision from the Australian Energy Regulator (AER), detailing the funding needed to deliver safe, reliable and affordable electricity to Tasmanians for the coming 2024-2029 regulatory control period.

We welcome the AER’s draft decision to accept the proposed operating and capital expenditure forecasts contained in our Combined Proposal. The full Draft Decision is available at the AER’s website.

The development of our Combined Proposal was the culmination of several years of work by over 100 people from across our business and involved many more who worked with us to shape its development.

We are thankful for the time, energy and expertise of everyone involved in helping us reach this important milestone and are pleased to see the AER commend us for our genuine engagement program.

Our key priority in the development of our Combined Proposal has been to provide Tasmanians with clean and reliable power, as affordably as possible. While these are tough times for that mission, we’re committed to affordability more than ever.

While our customers and stakeholders remain clearly focused on affordability, proactive investment in renewables, a desire for state-wide reliability, and a transparent approach to sustainability are also key priority areas.

Developing a Proposal that balances these preferences in the current economic environment is both more complex and important than ever before and we have made significant trade-offs in our Combined Proposal to do so, while keeping costs as low as possible above all else.

Forecast revenue and price impacts have increased from the Combined Proposal due to corrections in depreciation tracking and movements in market variables such interest rates, bond rates and expected inflation. Updates for these movements are a standard part of the AER’s process.

Breakdown of AER’s draft decision

Next steps

The AER did not accept the proposed contingent project triggers and have identified this as an area for TasNetworks to further engage on. TasNetworks will continue to work with the AER to refine the triggers associated with each contingent project and engage with stakeholders on the associated price impacts.

Stakeholder submissions on the Australian Energy Regulator's (AER) Issues Paper are now available from the AER's website.

The Issues Paper was released in late March 2023 and outlined areas of interest and concern in our Combined Proposal for the 2024-29 regulatory control period. The AER's consultation also included an online stakeholder forum in early April, and written submissions (which closed 12 May 2023).

A total of eight submissions were received from seven stakeholders, covering 15 topics:

• Aurora Energy (AE)
• AER Consumer Challenge Panel (CCP)
• ENTATAS (two submissions) (ET)
• Tasmanian Minerals, Manufacturing and Energy Council (TMEC)
• Tasmanian Renewable Energy Alliance (TREA)
• Tasmanian Small Business Council (TSBC)
• TasNetworks' Reset Advisory Commitee (RAC).

The next step in the AER's determination process will be the publication of their Draft Decision in September 2023. Follow the AER's process on their website.

Phase 5 of our engagement program ran between July and October 2022 and focused on engaging with our customers and stakeholders on our Draft Plan (the precursor to our Combined Proposal). During this phase we conducted deeper dives into the topics and issues that customers and stakeholders had highlighted in previous phases, gathering detailed feedback to help shape our Draft Plan and Combined Proposal.

• Download the full R24 Phase 5 Engagement Report here
• Download the summary R24 Phase 5 Engagement Report here

The Phase 5 report provides comprehensive detail from the ten engagement activities completed during this period, including the feedback we received. The report covers:

• Engagement methodologies
• Outcomes
• Evaluation
• Conclusions
• Activity and process summaries for individual engagement activities
• Consolidated results from evaluation surveys, completed by engagement participants.

To view the associated materials for Phase 4 engagement activities like agendas, presentations, notes and summaries, be sure to visit our Engagement Summaries page.

On 28 March 2023, the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) published an Issues Paper on TasNetworks' Combined Proposal for the 2024-29 regulatory control period, highlighting key elements of the proposal.

The Issues Paper is available for download here on the AER's website. Key aspects include:

• The AER's initial observations about the Combined Proposal
• Consumer engagement
• Network pricing
• Key elements of the revenue proposal
• Incentive schemes and allowances.

Public consultation

As part of its consultation process on our Combined Proposal, the AER is also hosting a 1-hour joint online public forum on Tuesday, 4 April 2023 (10-11am AEST). Those interested in attending can register for the forum here.

The AER is also inviting written submissions from interested parties on any part of our 2024-29 Combined Proposal (and the AER's proposed Negotiated distribution service criteria) by 12 May 2023. More details on how to make a submission are available here on the AER's website.

Key dates

*Milestones are indicative only and subject to change.

How to get in touch with us

Email: revenue.reset@tasnetworks.com.au

Phone: 1300 555 727

Web: tasnetworks.com.au

Phase 4 of our engagement program ran between July and October 2022 and focused on engaging with our customers and stakeholders on our Draft Plan (the precursor to our Combined Proposal). During this phase we conducted deeper dives into the topics and issues that customers and stakeholders had highlighted in previous phases, gathering detailed feedback to help shape our Draft Plan and Combined Proposal.

• Download the full R24 Phase 4 Engagement Report here
• Download the summary R24 Phase 4 Engagement Report here.

The Phase 4 report provides comprehensive detail from the ten engagement activities completed during this period, including the feedback we received. The report covers:

• Engagement methodologies
• Outcomes
• Evaluation
• Conclusions
• Activity and process summaries for individual engagement activities
• Consolidated results from evaluation surveys, completed by engagement participants.

To view the associated materials for Phase 4 engagement activities like agendas, presentations, notes and summaries, be sure to visit our Engagement Summaries page.

Members of the Reset Advisory Committee (RAC) have independently authored a report critiquing TasNetworks' engagement approach for the 2024-2029 revenue reset.

The report is available for download here, and was provided to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) as part of TasNetworks' Combined Proposal submission on the 31 January 2023.

The report covers the following key areas:

• Education
• Affordability
• Cost versus benefits
• Culture
• Contingent projects
• The impact of the RAC.

Part of a broader suite of supporting materials accompanying TasNetworks' Combined Proposal, available here, the report was produced with assistance from the Energy Consumers Australia Consumer Empowerment Funding Program.(External link)

More details about TasNetworks' Combined Proposal and the AER's determination process can be found here, on Talk with TasNetworks.

We are pleased to announce the submission of our Combined Proposal and supporting documentation to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER), detailing the funding we need to deliver safe, reliable and affordable electricity to Tasmanians for the coming 2024-2029 regulatory control period.

>> Download our key Combined Proposal documents below <<

Overview

Snapshot

Attachments

In addition to the above, the full suite of supporting documents for the Combined Proposal are available from the AER's website here.

Shaped by customer and stakeholder insights gathered during our most comprehensive and diverse engagement program to date, our Combined Proposal seeks to deliver the outcomes our customers value while also enabling Tasmania’s transition to a clean energy future.

We know that households and businesses are under increasing pressure, so we’ve focused on keeping our prices as low as possible by reducing our costs where we can. This has resulted in total forecast expenditure that's lower than our total current period allowance from the AER.

We also acknowledge that while investment needed to connect new, low-cost renewable generation and support customer-driven solar and storage will mean price increases in the short to medium-term, we know it will ultimately help deliver more reliable services and lower prices in the future.

Completed over 18 months, we spoke directly with over 570 customers and stakeholders across the state in a series of workshops, focus groups, collaborative panels, online forums, webinars and surveys, as well conducting individual discussions with major industrial customers, who use over 50% of the state’s electricity supply each year. The engagement consistently revealed the number one priority for our customers and stakeholders is affordability, followed by:

1. Reliable electricity supply
2. Transparent and socially responsible approaches that result in sustainable solutions
3. Proactive, long-term investment in renewable energy that increases Tasmania’s capabilities and unlocks associated community benefits.

Developing a Combined Proposal that balances these preferences in the current economic environment is both more complex and important than ever before, so we’ve also included trade-offs that put downward pressure on costs without sacrificing reliability and safety or undermining the delivery of other priorities.

Proposal highlights

• Total expenditure for transmission and distribution networks lower than the allowance for the 2019-2024 period
• Targeted improvements in the reliability of parts of our distribution network
• A suite of measures to improve the resilience of our networks to the effects of climate change, including improved bushfire resilience
• A new customer service incentive scheme, including a more meaningful measure of customer service.

Next steps

We would like to thank the many customers and stakeholders who have given their time to help shape our Combined Proposal so far. The AER is now reviewing the Combined Proposal and supporting documentation, and their final decision will influence how much we spend on our networks over the next five years.

We welcome feedback on the Combined Proposal, either directly to us or through the AER's consultation process. The expected timelines for the determination process are outlined below:

*Milestones are indicative only and subject to change.

How to get in touch with us

Email: revenue.reset@tasnetworks.com.au

Phone: 1300 555 727

Web: tasnetworks.com.au