Level 3 ASPs

What is Happening?

The first release of the Essential Connections portal for Low Voltage (LV) enquiries and applications, scheduled for Monday 16 Monday, has been delayed.

Due to unforeseen technical issues outside of Essential Energy’s control we will not be able to release the new portal on 16 May as planned.

Please continue to submit all LV connection enquiries and applications through the existing enquiry and connections portals available on the Connecting to the Network page on our website.

It is expected at this stage that the release of the portal will be delayed until June 2022

We will keep you informed and will be able to share more accurate information on the revised date in the coming weeks.

Introduction of fees and upfront payment

We previously communicated that the introduction of Ancillary Network Services (ANS) fees and upfront payments were scheduled to be charged from Monday 16 May. These fees will also be delayed to align with the release of the new Essential Connections portal.

What do you need to do?

1. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

What is Happening?

Essential Energy is working to improve customer experiences across the end-to-end connections process by upgrading technology and improving processes. Improvements include the new Essential Connections self-service portal, which we are targeting for Monday,16 May 2022.

All Low Voltage (LV) connection enquiries and applications are to be created and submitted through the new portal from 16 May 2022.

All High Voltage (HV) enquiries, applications, design, construction, testing and quality assurance processes will be transitioned to Essential Connections in future phases of the project.

Changes from the current Low Voltage enquiry and application forms

The new Essential Connections portal will be your one-stop-shop for all your enquiries and applications.

The portal will automate many manual processes. It will also integrate with other systems to provide data from organisations such as Spatial Services NSW (address validation and auto-population of lot/DP) and the Clean Energy Council (inverter and battery lists) to help you complete your applications.

Other exciting changes coming with the release of Essential Connections include:

• new and more targeted application categories, such as load only, generation only, load and generation, temporary builders supply, unmetered supply and asset relocation
• email/SMS notifications for job progress (no more calling Essential Energy for updates)
• electronic signature for Connection Offer acceptance (no more printing and signing)
• standard connections are automatically approved
• easy-to-use online payment gateway for upfront payments
• knowledge articles on the Essential Energy website to help you use and understand the new portal.

Getting ready for 16 May 2022

Read only access to Connections web portal from 11 May to 16 May (no applications can be submitted)

From midday 11 May, connection enquiries and applications will no longer be submitted via the Connections web portal, while we switch over to the new Essential Connections portal, which is scheduled to be released on 16 May.

Registered users will still be able to log in with read only access to view applications previously submitted.

Activating your Essential Connections account for Level 1 & 2 ASPs and ECs (Level 3 ASPs will use that same access as the BetterConnect portal)

Before you can access the Essential Connections portal and submit enquiries and applications, you will need to activate your account.

On Sunday 15 May, you will receive a welcome email from our secure access management provider OKTA with a link through to the essential connections portal

Note: Solar Retailers need to self-register via the Essential Energy website to use the new Essential Connections portal. Registration will be available on 16 May.

Introduction of fees and upfront payment

The Essential Connections portal enables Essential Energy to charge for Ancillary Network Services (ANS) fees, as required by the Australian Energy Regulator. Up until now, we have not charged for some of these fees, as our systems did not support such charging. To find out more, read introduction of new fees and upfront payment on Essential Engagement.

We previously communicated that ANS fees and upfront payment were scheduled to be charged from Monday 2 May. The new date is 16 May, to align with the release of the Essential Connections portal.

What do you need to do?

1. Review the above, watch the video by click on Essential Connections Portal preview and look out for your activation email on 15th May 2022.
2. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

What is Happening?

Our new Essential Connections self-service portal – the latest stage of our end-to-end connections process improvements – will go live soon. We are working through several activities to get everyone ready and plan to commence transition to the new portal in the first week of May.

When we go live, you will be able to create and submit all low voltage (LV) connection enquiries and applications through the new portal.

All High Voltage (HV) connection enquires, applications, design, construction, testing and quality assurance processes will be transitioned to Essential Connections in future stages of the project.

See image below for stages of the Essential Connections rollout:

What is changing?

As we deliver new enhancements, many of our manual processes will be automated through Essential Connections. The self-service portal will ensure that:

• Information only needs to be submitted once
• Jobs are accessible in one system
• Requests can be submitted electronically (using different device types)
• Email and SMS notifications will alert you when you need to do something, such as provide additional information or accept a connection offer.

What are the benefits?

• Visibility of all your jobs within one portal
• Electronic signature for Connection Offer acceptance
• Easy-to-use online payment gateway for upfront payments
• Proactive notifications for job progress (no more calling Essential Energy for updates)
• Updated information and knowledge articles available on the Essential Energy website to help you use the new portal.

Activating your Essential Connections account

Before you can access Essential Connections and submit enquiries and applications, you will need to activate your account. We will share more detailed information on activating your account in our next communication.

Introduction of fees and upfront payment

The Essential Connections portal enables Essential Energy to charge for Ancillary Network Services fees as required by the Australian Energy Regulator. Until now, we have not charged for some of these fees, as our systems did not support such charging. To find out more, visit Essential Engagement.

When will you hear from us next?

We will update you with further information on the status of how we are progressing with the transition plan of Essential Connections and activating your account in our next communication on 26 April.

What do you need to do?

1. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.

Further Information

For further information about the Essential Connections portal, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

What is happening?

To protect everyone’s health and safety, we’ll hold our next round of ASP engagement forums via Zoom, rather than face to face.

In this round, we’ll be covering a range of topics including Safety, Standards update, Digital Twin update, our BetterConnect project and Connections Changes, and Supply Chain update.

We encourage you to participate in these forums. You’ll have the opportunity to discuss our plans and initiatives, and to ask questions or raise issues with Essential Energy team members.

Dates and times

Click on one of the options below to reserve your preferred session (all sessions will have the same content).

• Session 1: Tuesday, 26 April 2022 from 11:00am to 01:00pm
• Session 2: Wednesday, 27 April 2022 from 05:00pm to 07:00pm
• Session 3: Thursday, 28 April 2022 from 09:00am to 11:00am

A confirmation email will be sent to you with the Zoom meeting details once you have registered.

What do you need to do?

1. Select the session date above and reserve your spot to attend one of our forums.
2. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.
3. View this communication via Essential Engagement.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

What is Happening?

Essential Energy will be introducing fees for some Low Voltage Connection Applications. From 2 May 2022, new charges will be applied to certain services where we are required by Australian Energy Regulator (AER) to charge for these services. These charges include:

• Fees for connection enquiries based on the estimated effort to complete (noting not all enquiries will be charged a fee)
• Additional fees to some connection applications where detailed engineering assessments (1% of applications) or power quality studies are required (0.1% of all applications a year)
• Incomplete information fee applied to applications that are submitted without the required information or attachments/supporting information included.
• We are continuing the transition to upfront payments of high volume and low value ANS charges.

The fees can be found in the table below:

The above table of Ancillary Network Service and Amounts are as per the Price Schedule for Ancillary Network Services 1 July 2021. These Network Service changes will move to upfront payment via the secure online payment gateway. 

“User Pays” Principle 

These fees cover the costs of services that we already provide and are expected to charge for under our agreement with the Australian Energy Regulator (AER). 

Under the Regulatory Framework, we need to recover those costs from the specific customers requiring the service.  

What do you need to do? 

1. Accredited Service Providers, Authorised Persons and Electrical Contractors should consider pricing changes when preparing quotations for customers regarding future work. 
2. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation. 

Further Information 

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au. 

What is Happening?

Essential Energy is changing the fees we charge for some Low Voltage Basic Connection Applications. We are providing six weeks’ notice of our first fee change to allow you time to prepare.

Basic Connection Application fee

From 14 March 2022, $123.38 (exc GST) will be charged per offer where a technical review is required.

This will ensure fee consistency for all Basic Connection Offers requiring technical review and recover the cost of assessing these applications from those requiring the work.

How will I know if I am going to be charged?

Basic connections involve minimal or no augmentation of the distribution network and are within the limits outlined below:

A technical review is required when the proposed connection:

• exceeds these limits, and / or
• involves electricity generation (e.g., solar, wind, hydropower) to enable export to the electricity network.

A common application type impacted by this change is a new solar connection application. Please note that customers who include a note in their application that they are willing to voluntarily limit their solar export to 5kW (Urban) or 3kW (Rural) will not incur the fee.

Additional information can be found in our Connecting to the Network Information Pack.

Complex Connection Application fee

Complex Connection Applications can occasionally require a detailed assessment by a Connections Planning Engineer. Later this year, we will introduce a fee to recover the cost of any complex connection application that requires a detailed assessment by a Connections Planning Engineer. We will provide more information prior to this fee introduction.

What do you need to do

1. Accredited Service Providers, Authorised Persons, Electrical Contractors, Solar Retailers and Solar Installers should consider pricing changes when preparing quotations or estimates for customers regarding future connection applications to be submitted on or after 14 March 2022.
2. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

What is Happening?

As you will be aware, the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) has issued an urgent alert advising all Australian organisations to heighten their cyber security as a result of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.

Essential Energy’s technology teams are on high alert. We’ve increased monitoring of all our systems and gateways and are currently reviewing all internet-facing assets.

This includes reviewing and enhancing risk detection, mitigation, response measures and ensuring that logging and detection systems are fully updated and functioning.

As a valued partner, we trust in your vigilance and ask for early warning of any compromise of your systems that may impact Essential Energy. Your co-operation will be critical in helping us protect our assets and ensuring a safe and reliable power supply for our customers.

To report a compromised system or for further information please contact Essential Energy on 13 23 91.

What do you need to do?

1. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.
2. View this communication via Essential Engagement.

Further Information

If you need further information, please contact Essential Energy on 13 23 91.

What is happening?

We have made some recent changes to Neara to improve Digital Asset Management capability and your user experience. We also wanted to highlight changes to Neara access, and let you know that our refresher training sessions are available for viewing on Essential Engagement.

Neara/Technical update

• From 9 February 2022, an updated Environment Spreadsheet will be available. Please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au to request a copy of this spreadsheet.
• The CEOM7098 (Distribution Underground Design and Construction Manual) has also been updated to reference the Low Voltage drop calculations for Underground design in Neara (refer to section 2.28.3 LV Drop) which now concludes all outstanding improvements in this area.

Change to Neara access

In exchange for the provision of LiDAR and network model information in Neara, from 14 March 2022, ASPs who access this information must include the design model .power file as part of your design submission in Salesforce. This will avoid unnecessary delays in processing your request, improve communication and design capability and reduce rework for everyone.

ASP Neara refresher training survey feedback

Thank you to all the ASPs that attended our Neara refresher training sessions held with our Digital Asset Management team in November and December 2021. Attendance was excellent over the four sessions with loads of questions.

Respondents to a post-Neara refresher training survey said:

All recordings from the training sessions are now available to access on Essential Engagement (at bottom of page under “Neara Refresher Sessions”).

What do you need to do?

1. Submit your .power files as part of your design submission in Salesforce.
2. Review this information including the training session recordings on Essential Engagement.
3. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

What is happening?

Essential Energy is working to improve our end-to-end connections process, progressively automating many previously manual processes through our new Connections Portal. To enable you to pre-register for access to the new Essential Connections Portal, we need to ensure that your contact information is up to date.

What is the Essential Connections Portal?

• The portal will simplify submitting connection information to Essential Energy and ensure that: information only needs to be submitted once
• current and historic jobs are accessible in one system
• requests can be submitted electronically (using different device types)
• notifications are automated, and
• users can easily ‘self-serve’ accurate information.

Eventually these improvements will cover Low Voltage (LV) and High Voltage (HV) Enquiries, Applications, Works Management, Testing and Quality Assurance processes.

When will the portal be released?

Release 1: LV Connection Enquiry and Applications

When: Expected to be released in late April or early May 2022

As the project progresses, we will keep you updated and share information on further enhancements.

What you can expect from us:

In the coming weeks, we will contact ASPs or ECs whose key contact information appears incomplete or who have replicated data in our systems to clarify:

• First/last name
• Contact details
• Current company name
• A unique email address (more than one email will be required if working for more than one company)
• Details of any administration staff who require portal access.

What do you need to do?

Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

What is Happening?

Essential Energy is changing the fees we charge for some Low Voltage Basic Connection Applications. We are providing six weeks’ notice of our first fee change to allow you time to prepare.

Basic Connection Application fee

From 14 March 2022, $123.38 (exc GST) will be charged per offer where a technical review is required.

This will ensure fee consistency for all Basic Connection Offers requiring technical review and recover the cost of assessing these applications from those requiring the work.

How will I know if I am going to be charged?

Basic connections involve minimal or no augmentation of the distribution network and are within the limits outlined below:

A technical review is required when the proposed connection:

• exceeds these limits, and / or
• involves electricity generation (e.g., solar, wind, hydropower) to enable export to the electricity network.

A common application type impacted by this change is a new solar connection application. Please note that customers who include a note in their application that they are willing to voluntarily limit their solar export to 5kW (Urban) or 3kW (Rural) will not incur the fee.

Additional information can be found in our Connecting to the Network Information Pack.

Complex Connection Application fee

Complex Connection Applications can occasionally require a detailed assessment by a Connections Planning Engineer. Later this year, we will introduce a fee to recover the cost of any complex connection application that requires a detailed assessment by a Connections Planning Engineer. We will provide more information prior to this fee introduction.

What do you need to do

1. Accredited Service Providers, Authorised Persons, Electrical Contractors, Solar Retailers and Solar Installers should consider pricing changes when preparing quotations or estimates for customers regarding future connection applications to be submitted on or after 14 March 2022.
2. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.