The NSW Treasurer has clarified the roll-off dates for the Electricity Tariff Equalisation Fund (ETEF) in an amendment to the payment rules. The start and end dates of the phase-out have not been revised again since the last announcement. There will be reductions in the coverage of the regulated load by 20% each on 4 Jul 2010, 3 Oct 2010, 2 Jan 2011 and 3 Apr 2011. On 1 Jul 2011 ETEF will be completely phased out.
As part of its latest electricity privatisation plan, the NSW Government has again extended the Electricity Tariff Equalisation Scheme (ETEF).
The latest plan has ETEF being phased out between 1 July 2010 and 30 June 2011, with a quarterly 20% roll-off. The exact dates of the roll-offs have not been specified.
Most recently, ETEF was set to run until June 2010, although the end of the scheme was left open-ended.
The NSW Government has re-announced its electricity sale plans with some updates. While the ‘International Market Testing Update’ planned for expressions of interest in July / August, the new plan now sets the date from late September until mid-November 2009.
It was announced today that the NSW Treasurer (in consultation with the Minister for Energy) has cancelled the scheduled September 2009 and March 2010 Electricity Tariff Equalisation Fund (ETEF) roll-offs. ETEF will now remain fully in force until 30 June 2010. The announcement was made in a special supplement to the NSW Government Gazette for 10th July 2009
In its Review of NSW Climate Change Mitigation Measures released yesterday, IPART recommends that the NSW Government continue with the Energy Savings Scheme, despite recommending that the planned NSW Energy Efficiency Target should be scrapped.
Yesterday, the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) released its final determination on regulated retail electricity prices with its report ‘Market-based electricity purchase cost allowance – 2009 review’. The new pricing covers the 2009/10 financial year.
IPART say that the new pricing ‘…represents an increase of around 21.7 per cent, 21.1 per cent and 17.9 per cent for regulated residential customers of EnergyAustralia, Integral Energy and Country Energy, respectively.’
The NSW Government has reaffirmed its committment to the sale of the state-owned retailers, development sites and power trading rights with its International Market Testing Update released on 12th May.
The update states that ’…there is more than sufficient interest at this stage to proceed to the next stage of the transaction.’
One of the next steps is that ‘…the Government will call for formal Expressions of Interest in July/August this year.’
Yesterday, the Energy Supply Association of Australia (ESAA) released the results of its ‘Global Financial Crisis Survey‘. The key findings were that:
“NSW workers may find themselves in a situation similar to that of workers in Victoria, where the privatisation of the state’s electricity grid is happening at an alarming rate.”
The above quote appeared in the Australian on the 3rd of May, 1995. The NSW Government is indeed moving at an alarming rate. In only fourteen short years the Government already has a draft plan and a tentative sale date.
On 20 January 2009, the NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal and Energy Minister Ian Macdonald announced that the March 2009 roll-off of the Electricity Tariff Equalisation Fund (ETEF) has been deferred until 27 September 2009. This is the second time in six months that ETEF has been deferred.
ETEF commenced operation on 1 January 2001, and its goal is essentially to mitigate the cost to state-owned electricity retailers of having to perform a social duty. Prior to ETEF, NSW had vesting contracts between generators and retailers, which were agreements to supply electricity at a fixed price to ‘non-contestable’ customers who were on a fixed tariff.
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