Our electricity distribution network
We are one of 5 electricity distribution networks in Victoria. Our electricity distribution network delivers electricity to over 750,000 homes, businesses, hospitals, schools and other facilities across eastern and north-eastern Victoria, and in Melbourne’s north and east. You cannot choose your electricity distributor, as they are assigned to you depending on the area where you live.
Our responsibilities in electricity distribution include managing the reliability of your supply (and the frequency and duration of outages), powerline safety (up to your meter), metering services, connecting newly-built properties to the electricity network, and connecting rooftop solar and batteries to the electricity network.
Electricity Distribution Price Review (EDPR)
The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) is responsible for regulating electricity distribution networks via a national framework. We are regulated on 5-year cycles through a process known as an Electricity Distribution Price Review (EDPR).
Through the EDPR, we work closely with our customers, other stakeholders and the AER to develop plans for our network. These plans outline the services we will offer customers, the costs to deliver those services, and the plan for how we will use money collected via the distribution charge on customers’ bills.
Customer and stakeholder engagement was central to the price review process. The objective of our EDPR 2022-2026 engagement program was to deliver authentic, customer priority-driven engagement that would meet stakeholders’ expectations and inform the development of our proposal and business planning.
Our engagement activities
Our EDPR engagement for the 1 July 2022-30 June 26 period was centred around our Customer Forum. This approach was a first in Australia and saw us working closely with our appointed Customer Forum, the AER and Energy Consumers Australia via the “New Reg” trial to directly negotiate parts of our proposal.
We directly negotiated on our operating expenditure, augmentation expenditure, customer experience and hardship arrangements, our price path, replacement expenditure, distributed energy resource (DER) integration, metering, innovation and the overall “reasonableness” of our proposal.
The Customer Forum’s work is well documented in the Interim and Final Engagement reports linked below.
While many detailed conversations were had with the Customer Forum, the engagement process was very broad with over 5,500 individual customers and their advocates directly taking part in the EDPR 2022-26 engagement process. The Customer Forum additionally met with more than 80 individual residential and business customers, advocates, Members of Parliament, council officers and others.
Further information
To find out more about the EDPR process and to view our proposals and arrangements for the current access period, please refer to the AER website AusNet determination 2022-26.
We are currently preparing our plans for the EDPR 2026-2031 regulatory period.
Details of this process and our upcoming engagement activities will be published once the plan is approved. Keep an eye out for this.
