Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO)
Operates the National Electricity Market and publishes the biennial Integrated System Plan, which identifies the transmission projects the system needs and designates some of them actionable.
Responsibilities
- Publish the Integrated System Plan every two years
- Designate actionable transmission projects and their optimal development paths
- Operate the power system and market
Operates under
- National Electricity Rules, Chapter 5
The Integrated System Plan is the closest thing Australia has to a national infrastructure plan that actually binds anything. It models the whole system, tests development paths against scenarios, consults extensively, and concludes that particular projects are needed.
Which is what makes what happens next hard to defend. Having been identified as needed by a whole-of-system cost-benefit process, an actionable project then undertakes its own cost-benefit process -- the regulatory investment test -- to establish that it is needed.
The actionable ISP framework was designed to link the two and reduce the duplication, and it did reduce it. It did not remove it. See Test an actionable ISP project once, not twice.
Where this body appears in a process
Every point at which Australian Energy Market Operator can hold something up, and why.
| Process | Step | Why it waits | Clock | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Build a major transmission line — sequential easement pathway | Identified as an actionable project in the Integrated System Plan assessment | assessment | — | 365 |
| Build a major transmission line — concurrent easement pathway (Victoria) | Identified as an actionable project in the Integrated System Plan assessment | assessment | — | 365 |