Network Service Providers (NSPs) are increasingly pursuing unregulated revenue opportunities to offset recent reductions in the growth of their regulated business. However, efforts by regulators to ensure that any unregulated activities are appropriately ring-fenced are creating an increasingly complex operating environment for NSPs. Reductions in the level of peak demand in the NEM(1) and the…
Launched by Minister Neville at the CEDA lunch on 16th March, the Water for Victoria Discussion Paper is a comprehensive repositioning of the state’s aspirations for water planning and management, intended to guide the industry’s endeavours for several decades. Fresh vision Water for Victoria takes the long view. It brings together extensive input and fields…
With cost pressures continually placed upon water and electricity utilities by governments, owners and regulators, our clients continually face challenges in delivering efficiency gains year-on-year. Marchment Hill Consulting (MHC) has worked closely with a number of clients to develop improvement strategies that drive unprecedented, yet expected, levels of performance improvement. In this process, benchmarking is…
In late 2014, the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) introduced a new rule requiring network businesses to set prices that reflect the efficient cost of providing network services to individual consumers. As the cost of network provision is impacted more by maximum electricity demand than usage, this typically translates to higher prices in periods of high…
While the cost of battery storage technology is the usual point of discussion when it comes to barriers to its widespread uptake, there are other equally significant commercial barriers standing in the way, generated by existing regulatory and policy settings – some of which would prevent uptake even if batteries were free. These barriers are…
Guest contributor: Dr Philip Lewis, Founder and CEO at VaasaETT Global Energy Think Tank, Board Member at Smart Energy Demand Coalition When I was a child, in the ’70s and ’80s in Great Britain, people knew electric vehicles in only one form: the milk float. As trendy as Rodney’s Reliant Regal in the famous comedy…
The significant drive and passion for implementation of asset management that swept Australian water utilities over a decade ago has slowly dissipated, as asset management has transformed into a focused business-as-usual function. However, parallel industries are now steering towards ISO 55000 certification, as a means to placing increased focus on their Asset Management System. Is…
What role should a water utility play in a rural or regional community? Its activities could extend across three levels: Stay close to customer-focused services Provide more general services – environment protection or future service capacity Play a broader role in regional economic development. From their beginnings in the infrastructure age of the late 1800s,…
MHC works collaboratively with our clients to tease out problems and propose viable solutions. This collaboration extends into the hard work of implementation – where more and more stakeholders need to become involved and take ownership of the change and ongoing operations. During this time, the senior leadership team needs to stay across each implementation…
Where expectations between businesses and communities significantly diverge, grass-roots initiatives can often emerge in response to the local preferences and values of residents. The energy industry is not immune to such intervention and technological advances and associated cost reductions in small-scale distributed energy sources, paired with growing consumer awareness and changing expectations regarding service needs…