Your Power, Your Future, Your Say

Earlier this month our Customer Panel reconvened to consider how the changing economy had impacted our Regulatory Proposal, their current views on affordability, as well as their long-term service priorities. They also considered timeframes for a transition to time-of-use (cost reflective) network tariffs. The Customer Panel Outcomes Report can be found here. Key outcomes are:

• 96% of the Customer Panel agreed that Endeavour Energy’s Regulatory Proposal reflects customers’ priorities and preferred outcomes and is in the long-term interests of customers (up from 90% in September 2022).
• 85% of the Customer Panel saying Endeavour Energy’s approach to keep electricity prices down and look after the needs of vulnerable customers was ‘about right’. Notwithstanding this, we know that affordability remains a top priority.
• 67% of the Customer Panel supported Endeavour Energy offering retailers a 12-month transition timeframe for time-of-use network tariffs, instead of the 24-month period we had initially proposed.
• 68 Customer Panel participants (all but one) volunteered to continue participating in the Customer Panel as we continue to engage on the issues that matter most to customers.

Endeavour Energy intends to maintain its proposed investment settings as a result of the outcomes of Wave 4 of our Customer Panel, and to change our Proposal to include a 12-month transition timeframe for time-of-use network tariffs.

We remain very grateful to our Customer Panel for their ongoing commitment and careful consideration of customers' long-term interests and affordability.

We warmly welcomed back our Customer Panel last night to share their views on energy affordability and cost of living pressures, and whether their priorities for a resilient service that also enables their future energy choices have changed in any way. Please see here the issues that our Customer Panel considered at last night's deliberative forum.

Almost 70 customers returned from last year, providing invaluable perspective as we confirm our plans for future energy services. We remain very grateful for their insights.

We will report back shortly on the outcomes of the latest Customer Panel forum, but it was clear last night’s discussion that customers are searching for education about how to manage their energy bills and access available support. Many don’t know where to go or who to talk to. We have listened and will continue to play our part to empower customers with the information they need moving forward.

The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has received 17 submissions (available here on the AER website) from customers and stakeholders regarding our Regulatory Proposal for distribtuon energy services in 2024 - 2029. We are grateful for everyone's input over the last two years as we worked towards firm plans for future energy services that are affordable, reliable, resilient and enable customers to participate in the energy transition.

The AER's Consumer Challenge Panel (CCP26) is one of the parties to have made a submission (available here). We have welcomed CCP members as they closely observed almost all of our engagements over the last 18 months. The CCP26's submission states:

"We then observed a highly functioning and extensive engagement process that was the subject of regular, frank and honest review. The result is a regulatory proposal that has been widely supported as capable of acceptance at draft determination stage."

Following the submission of our Regulatory Proposal 2024 2029, the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has released an Issues Paper as a key milestone in their determination of our Proposal. The Issues Paper makes preliminary observations of the Proposal against the key criteria of the AER's Better Resets Handbook and Early Signal Pathway for prudent and efficient investment, as well as customer engagement.

The Issues Paper includes key questions for customer and stakeholder consideration, and the AER will accept submissions (including responses to the questions posed in the Issues Paper up to 12 May 2023. We encourage interested parties to participate in the statutory consultation being run by the AER.

The AER will hold a Public Forum on the NSW distribution networks' Regulatory Proposals on Wednesday 5 April. You can still register to attend the AER Public Forum here.

We are pleased to publish the third report from the Regulatory Reference Group's (RRG) Independent Members Panel, which responds to the submission of Endeavour Energy's Regulatory Proposal for future services in the 2024 - 2029 regulatory period, and touches on the engagement program that Endeavour Energy has undertaken to develop our plans. The Independent Members Panel states in its latest report:

"“Endeavour Energy has approached the development of its Proposal in an honest, open and genuine way. Throughout the process, Endeavour Energy has listened to, taken on board and responded to feedback from the Independent Members Panel as well as its Customer Panel and other stakeholders. As a result, we support the process that Endeavour Energy has undergone to develop its Proposal and we consider that the Proposal generally reflects consumer perspectives."

Read their full report here to consider their full analysis and recommendations to Endeavour Energy for further engagement.

Last year our 89-member Customer Panel provided support for an accelerated transition to time-of-use (cost reflectvie) tariffs for Endeavour Energy customers. However, that support was strongly linked to their expectations that Endeavour Energy would provide good transitional arrangements, including education for customers.

In direct response to that customer feedback, as a first step we commissioned a Tariffs Knowledge Review to help us understand what we could do to empower our customers through that proposed tariff reform. The purpose of the Review has been to:

• develop a greater understanding of the non-technological barriers to the uptake of time-of-use tariffs by customers, and the education materials that might help customers make the most of this propsoed change in our tariff structure
• inform a customer-centric approach to increasing the application of time-of-use tariffs that meets the needs of customers and the Australian Energy Regulator (AER); and,
• act on our genuine and long-term commitment to working proactively on tariffs across the industry to our customers' advantage.

The Tariffs Knoweldge Review contains interesting behaviour insights, and has implications for the industry as a whole and for how Endeavour Energy can best prepare our customers for the widespread adoption of time-of-use tariffs.

Endeavour Energy has proudly lodged its Regulatory Proposal 2024 - 2029 to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER). The full Proposal is accessible here (please also see newsfeed post below), and customers can also read our consumer-friendly overview of the Proposal. For a quick glance at our Proposal, we have also produced a summary fact sheet outlining the key investments and service outcomes that our Proposal includes.

We warmly encourage customers and stakeholders to review our Regulatory Proposal documents, which can easily be found here at Your Say in the Key Reading folder, or by clicking on the links in our newsfeed posts. The AER will also publish the Proposal and the full suite of all of attachments (approx. 160 attachments) on their website following a compliance review.

Endeavour Energy has today formally submitted to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) a detailed Regulatory Proposal for 2024 - 2029. In addition to the Proposal, the AER asks that we publish an overview or consumer-friendly version that ensures a broad range of customers and stakeholders can accessibly review, consider and respond to our Proposal.

We are pleased to share our Regulatory Proposal Overview 2024 - 2029 here. We take this opportunity to thank the 1,800+ customers and stakeholders who participated in and directly influenced our plans for the future of our energy distribution service, which are reflected in this overview document.

Endeavour Energy has proudly submitted to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) our Regulatory Proposal 2024 - 2029, which was co-designed with customers over 20-months of deep and broad engagement.

Our Proposal outlines plans to deliver power supply over the 2024-2029 period, including investments in building and maintaining the electricity network, customer service, and proposed tariffs.

We believe our Proposal strikes the best possible balance between dependability, value for money and efficient investments in innovation to serve customers’ long-term choices and interests. We have proposed future investment that balances our customers future priorities with a sharp focus on affordability for all.

We know that it is more critical than ever for Endeavour Energy to take a measured approach to investment at a time when external economic factors were driving up power prices and the cost of living. Our distribution charges are some of the lowest in Australia and we are working hard to keep our costs stable by tightly managing what we can control, keeping our part of customer bills as low as possible.

Our Proposal is defined by a focus on value for money with an increased emphasis on our customers’ emerging priorities of innovation and resilience.

Endeavour Energy is pleased to share with customers and stakeholders our Tariff Structure Statement (TSS), which accompanies our Regulatory Proposal, and was formally submited to the Australian Energy Regulator this afternoon. This can be read in conjunction with our Tariff Structure Explanatory Statement (TSES).