Submission to AEMC Accelerating smart meter depoloyment draft determination

PIAC made a submission to the Australian Energy Market Commission’s (AEMC) draft determination on Accelerating smart meter deployment.

Smart meters digitally measure and record electricity consumption and power quality data in near real-time. As such, they can significantly increase the scope, efficiency, and reliability of the delivery of energy services. This makes smart meters key enablers of system efficiency, and essential to the transition to a cleaner, more distributed, and flexible energy system.

In our submission, we raised concerns that the review of metering, on which this rule change proposal draws, has not adequately considered the role of metering and assessed the most efficient and effective means of ensuring the regulatory framework for metering enables that role. We maintain that returning responsibility for metering to distribution networks better aligns with the long-term interests of consumers.

More comprehensive, quality, real-time data access is needed to facilitate the energy transition. The existing industry structure which vests metering entities with responsibility for these services produces financial incentives for these parties to leverage their position to develop new revenue streams that are not in the consumer interest. Addressing this imperative necessitates a regulatory framework that affirms the consumer’s right to access and control local, near real-time data from their meter.