Media Release: Lower costs, continued reliability, solar exports and batteries a focus of United Energy’s five-year plan
The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) today announced its final determination on United Energy’s proposed plan for the 2021-2026 period commencing 1 July.
The approved plan will allow United Energy to sustain reliable, safe and affordable electricity supplies while also building the capability necessary to offer quality services in the rapidly developing energy market featuring greater customer deployment of rooftop solar, batteries and into the future, electric vehicles.
United Energy Chief Executive Officer, Tim Rourke, said while the AER did not approve all the initiatives proposed, the determination provides the necessary funding for the network to invest in the programs which were of greatest importance to customers.
“This is a good outcome for our customers who will receive continued reliability and additional services at a lower cost,” Mr Rourke said.
“The critical programs will enable greater solar exports, increase network investments and upgrades, and realise the introduction of new technologies so as to offer secure data services for customers.”
Mr Rourke said lower network charges contribute to an 8% reduction in revenue which has been capped by the AER at $2.0 billion over five years. This has been made possible by improved efficiencies in the business with AER benchmarking ranking United Energy in the top five most productive distributors in the National Electricity Market based on operating expenditure.
“We will continue to deliver business efficiencies so as to ensure our customers’ expectations are met,” he said.
The highlights of the AER determination are:
- Increased affordability for customers with average residential network charges reducing by $60 in the first year, and remaining relatively flat.
- Savings on network charges for small business customers with costs reducing by $267 in the 2022 financial year.
- Increased capital expenditure to support network safety, reliability, bushfire mitigation and environmental obligations.
- Approval of funding required to upgrade the network so as to ensure 95% of solar customers will be able to export 5kW 85% of the time and build the digital capability for greater flexibility as distributed energy resources evolve.
- Upgrading zone substations and feeders at Doncaster, Keysborough, Mornington and East Malvern to provide additional capacity to meet demand and support customer choices for electric vehicles and batteries.
- Onshoring United Energy’s customer services, creating more Victorian-based jobs and improving the customer experience
Mr Rourke said with the AER final determination now received, United Energy can finalise a set of commitments to customers to deliver on the outcomes identified through consultation as priorities for the next five years.
“We want our customers to be confident that we are delivering on our promises,” Mr Rourke said.
“Formalising the commitments, as well as tracking and transparently reporting on the results, is important to demonstrating our customers are at the centre of our business.”
Another outcome of the consultation program conducted for the regulatory reset will be the launch in July of a new Customer Service Incentive Scheme. This provides broad and transparent performance measures designed to drive further improvements for customers. It will measure the length and frequency of planned outages, timeliness of SMS notifications (regarding unplanned outages) as well as the length of time it takes to answer our customer calls.
As regulated business, United Energy’s proposed investments, pricing plans and rate of return are approved by the AER every five years and this determines the revenue able to be recovered from customers.
The AER’s final determination is available at here.