MCE
At the 8th Meeting of the Ministerial Council on Energy on 27 August 2004 the Council established the Renewable and Distributed Generation Working Group. This Group has been established to provide strategic advice to the Standing Committee of Officials on policy directions for removing impediments to, and promoting the commercial uptake of renewable and distributed generation technologies and practices in the Australian energy market. The working group is responsible for wind energy policy, the development of a national Code of Practice for Embedded Generation, and Improving the Grid Accessibility initiative announced in the Australian Government's Energy White Paper in July 2004.
Bulletins
Renewable and Distributed Generation Bulletins are released to keep stakeholders informed of key developments and consultation arrangements during the implementation of the energy market reform program.
Code of Practice for Embedded Generation
The Utility Regulators Forum is undertaking the task of developing a consistent and comprehensive Code of Practice for distributors across the NEM. The absence of a code or guidelines relating to distributed generation has been noted in a number of reports as being a barrier to entry for distributed generation.
However, seeing that work on the Code of Practice was undertaken prior to the development of the national distribution framework, recommendations have been limited. Appropriately, therefore, this work stream has now been integrated into the core work streams developing the economic and non-economic national distribution framework which is the responsibility of the Energy Market Reform Working Group, which includes the work being undertaking on Network Incentives.
Improving Grid Accessibility
The Australian Government's Energy White Paper, Securing Australian's Energy Future contained a series of initiatives to address impediments to the uptake of renewable and distributed generation and help reduce greenhouse emissions.
Among other proposals the White Paper commits the Australian Government to work with the states and territories through the Ministerial Council on Energy (MCE) to identify and act on specific rule changes required in the national electricity market (NEM) to maximise the benefits of distributed (including renewable energy) generation.
Work is also being undertaken by the Energy Market Reform Working Group to review the proposed electricity distribution rules with regard to network incentives and impacts for non-network alternatives such as distributed generation and demand side response. For further information see Network Incentives.
Network Incentives
The Ministerial Council on Energy Standing Committee of Officials (SCO) engaged NERA Economic Consulting (NERA) and Allen Consulting Group to provide expert advice in reviewing the proposed electricity distribution rules on network incentives for distributed generation and demand side response.
Wind Energy Policy
In 2004 the Wind Energy Policy Working Group was established to provide advice, information and recommendations to the Ministerial Council on Energy on issues related to the entry of intermittent renewable energy generation into the electricity market. The Wind Energy Technical Advisory Group, with industry sector representation was formed to assist the policy group with the analysis of the technical matters.