Exemption guidelines review - Consultation paper - May 2026

On 18 May 2026, the AER published a consultation paper seeking stakeholder views on the AER’s proposal to amend the Network Exemptions Guideline and the Retail Exempt Selling Guideline to:

• reflect new energy rules relating to secondary settlement points and flexible metering flexible trading reforms and ensure our exemptions guidance remains clear and consistent
• reduce unnecessary regulatory burden for commercial embedded network retrofits while maintaining appropriate consumer protections for embedded network customers.

Our review is limited to the confined scope proposed in our consultation paper and does not propose to revisit the policy intent of the flexible trading rule change or the broader objectives of the exemptions framework.