Australian Energy Regulator (AER)
Sets the guidelines for the regulatory investment test for transmission, resolves disputes about its application, and decides the contingent project applications through which a transmission business recovers the cost of a new project from consumers.
Responsibilities
- Publish the RIT-T and application guidelines
- Determine disputes about the application of the test
- Assess contingent project applications and determine allowed revenue
Operates under
- National Electricity Rules, rule 5.15A and Chapter 6A
The AER is the body that decides whether consumers pay for a transmission line, which is the correct place for that decision and a genuinely important protection. Transmission is a regulated monopoly: the business faces no competitive discipline on what it spends, and every dollar approved is recovered from every electricity bill for decades.
The question this database asks is not whether that scrutiny should exist. It is whether it needs to be a sequential stage occurring after a separate multi-year cost-benefit test that reached the same conclusion, when the information it turns on is largely the information the earlier test produced.
Where this body appears in a process
Every point at which Australian Energy Regulator can hold something up, and why.
| Process | Step | Why it waits | Clock | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Build a major transmission line — sequential easement pathway | Contingent project application and revenue determination decision | assessment | 56 | 224 |
| Build a major transmission line — concurrent easement pathway (Victoria) | Contingent project application and revenue determination decision | assessment | — | 180 |