On 3 October 2024, the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) made the final rule for Providing flexibility in the allocation of interconnector costs. The final rule provides a mechanism which enables the allocation of interconnector costs between regions in the National Electricity Market as specified in agreements between Ministers (interconnector cost allocation agreements).
We are required by the final rule to review, and if necessary, amend the pricing methodology guidelines and information guidelines for electricity transmission networks, to take into account the final rule.
On 1 April 2025, we published the draft amendments to our transmission pricing methodology guidelines. We also published the additional data requirements we considered should be collected via the Annual Information Orders for electricity transmission networks. This was consistent with our general approach to collecting other transmission information through the Annual Information Orders.
We received four submissions on our draft amendments and additional data requirements which can be found on our draft decision page.
On 3 July 2025, we published the final pricing methodology guidelines, the final data requirements for the information we will collect annually and an explanatory statement setting out the basis for these. Our final decision largely retains the amendments from our draft decision, but takes into account the submissions we received and provides clarification in relation to specific aspects of the guidelines and additional data requirements. Our final amendments will guide transmission network service providers in implementing any interconnector cost allocation agreements in their transmission pricing methodologies.