Restoring electricity affordability and Australia’s competitive advantage - Retail Electricity Pricing Inquiry—Final Report

The NEL should be amended to provide the AER with powers to address behaviour which has the effect of manipulating the proper functioning of the wholesale market, together with the necessary investigation powers and appropriate remedies. [...] The parameters of a market making obligation should have regard to: the size of the South Australian market the distribution of generation ownership in the region the benefits to market liquidity and efficiency of regular trading activity the burden of the requirements on obligated entities any impact on the incentives of intermittent generators to invest in firming technology. [...] To further assist with reducing the complexity of the rules and improving the timely adaptability of the framework, consideration should be given by the AEMC as part of its ongoing reviews of the NER to areas where the NER can be amended to make greater use of AER guidelines, rather than the codification of detailed regulatory assessment methodologies and processes within the NER. [...] The rebidding rules that currently attract civil penalties of $1 million should also be increased to the new higher level penalties, and that the wholesale provisions arising from the ACCC recommendations 1 and 3 associated with the conduct of participants under the NEL are increased to the same level as well and that these provisions also be subject to disgorgement (ill-gotten gain) penalties. [...] The COAG Energy Council should undertake a review of the effectiveness of the NECF three years after the implementation of the Inquiry recommendations and no later than four years after the release of this report.