The Clean Energy Council says the Australian Energy Market Commission’s (AEMC) ‘Connection to dedicated connection assets’ final rule announced yesterday (July 8) is a positive move that may end up facilitating privately developed renewable energy zones.
“This final rule will better facilitate the sharing of connection assets in areas of strong renewable resources like wind and solar, while still protecting the rights of those that fund and construct the assets,” Clean Energy Council director of energy transformation Christiaan Zuur said.
Of critical importance to the clean energy industry is the drastically reduced implementation timeframe. Previously, the AEMC allowed for a six-month window to implement the changes. However, in the final rule this has been reduced to two weeks due to the designated network assets (DNA) owners now administering the access policies, rather than the primary transmission network service provider.
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“Encouragingly, projects that are currently in the works that would like to proceed under this new framework will have the ability to do so,” Mr Zuur said.
“Allowing DNA owners, who can also be connecting parties, to manage the access policy is welcomed as this will reduce complexity, increase flexibility and ensure that access rights of the funding party and incumbent generators can be protected.
“The more preferable rule will still achieve the outcomes desired by the original Australian Energy Market Operator request by creating individual transmission network connection points for each connecting generator on a DNA, allowing a simpler approach to processes such as marginal loss factors and settlement.”