Recent Engagement: Small-scale renewable distributed generation, demand-side management (DSM) and storage are playing an increasingly important role in our energy mix. These new technologies represent a new future for distribution networks, and the broader electricity industry.
However, their proliferation within the incumbent system is highly dependent upon the regulatory, policy settings and these may be adversely impacting uptake.
To address this challenge, the CEC, under the FPDI program have scoped a review and critical evaluation of Australian policies and incentives to determine how best to address challenges ahead and best support these emerging technologies.
MHC are engaged to undertake a review of the current market conditions in Australia and why they may be problematic to increasing the uptake of renewable energy and emerging technologies such as embedded generation and DSM. MHC are currently engaging with key industry stakeholders to:
- identify the issues in the current policy framework
- understand the consequences the policy settings has had on the electricity sector
- understand what the industry would like to see happen differently and what solutions are proposed
- develop a report detailing the findings of the review and any recommendations.
This review provides the industry with insights into the suitability of, and potential for improvement in, policy settings that affect market participants, DNSPs, demand-side technology proponents, and customers. The review also presents arrangement in comparable environments overseas and the opportunities for those approaches to be applied to the Australian market.
