Australian Energy Regulator (AER) Final Decision

The AER has made its final decision on Essential Energy’s electricity determination for the 2024-29 period. The AER has accepted Essential Energy’s capital and operating expenditure plans for the next five years which were informed and supported by our customers, while also considering the impact of external factors on Essential Energy’s revenue including increases to interest rates and inflation.

The AER’s final decision is that Essential Energy can recover $6,309.9 million ($nominal, smoothed) from consumers over the 2024–29 period.

In its regulatory proposal Essential Energy outlines how the revenue, that can be recovered, will be used to operate and maintain NSW’s largest electricity distribution network from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2029. It includes plans to tackle key customer and stakeholder concerns, including realising the benefits of the energy transition and increasing community and network resilience.

Essential Energy engaged with more than 400 people in a multi-phased program of customer and stakeholder engagement to work collaboratively to ensure our Proposal delivered a resilient network fit for the future and was supported by customers.

A key focus will be building the network for the future through new systems to further enable to increasing levels of consumer energy resources, such as rooftop solar. This is in addition to investing in community resilience to support the economic growth of our 1,500 regional, rural and remote communities, including composite poles, providing a portable community hub, portable street lights and stand-alone power systems for use during significant weather and network events, and the installation of standalone power systems and microgrids on the network.

Essential Energy will continue to engage with customers on how we are tracking against our plans throughout the 2024-29 period.