In May 2026, the AER commenced its Exemption Guidelines Review, proposing 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.
Consultation paper
On 18 May 2026, the AER published a consultation paper seeking stakeholder views on the AER’s proposal to amend the guidelines.
Submissions on the consultation paper closed on 15 June 2026. We received 11 submissions.
Draft decision
On 18 August 2026, the AER released draft guidelines (both version 8), along with our draft decision.
The draft decision sets out the information we received in response to the consultation paper, how we considered stakeholder feedback and our reasoning for the proposed guideline amendments.
Stakeholders are invited to provide submissions on the draft guidelines, and accompanying factsheets and templates, by COB Tuesday, 15 September 2026.
View the draft decision and how to make a submission
Background
Under the National Electricity Law, any person or business who owns, controls or operates an electricity network, must be registered as a network service provider with the Australian Energy Market Operator or be subject to a network exemption from the AER. Under the National Energy Retail Law, any person or business who sells energy to another person for use at premises must have either a retailer authorisation or a retail exemption.
The AER can issue exemptions to individuals or classes of persons and subject those exemptions to specific conditions as set out in the Retail Exempt Selling Guideline and the Network Exemptions Guideline. These guidelines set out processes for registering and applying for exemptions and describe the different exemption categories along with their eligibility requirements. They also outline the AER’s policy approach to assessing exemption applications and determining exemption classes and conditions.