Network costs make up 40-50% of electricity bills for most households, and the most effective way to reduce these costs for all consumers is to improve the utilisation of existing network infrastructure. But traditional network utilisation metrics don't measure how well networks are used 99.9% of the time, focusing instead on the hour of the year with peak demand.
In collaboration with UTS we have pushed for the development and adoption of new approaches to measuring network efficiency. We firmly believe that these metrics will help reduce distribution network costs over time, by more clearly demonstrating where networks are stressed and where they have excess capacity.
Together with the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), we recognise the value of the AER’s network performance reporting.
However, we believe there is room for improvement, notably by refining the measurement of network utilisation with more advanced metrics, and incorporating more detailed analysis of network prices, in addition to network costs per customer.
