Nexa Advisory welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Senate Select Committee on
Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy.
There is over $20 billion invested in Consumer Energy Resources (CER) since 2018, which is
critical for energy reliability, resilience, and cost reduction. However, regulated monopoly
Distribution Network Service Provider (DNSP)s often hinder CER uptake, threatening
competitive markets through weakened ring-fencing and encroachment on unregulated sectors
by controlling information that should and can be made public.
To highlight the current issues in more detail, we attach our recent submission to the Australian
Energy Regulator (AER) which critiques the merit and information of Ausgrid’s Community
Power Network sandbox proposal (the Proposal).
Our main concern is that the Proposal, as framed, risks entrenching information asymmetries
and gatekeeping by a regulated monopoly DNSPs. This concern is shared by a wide range of
industry stakeholders through other public regulatory reviews. These key stakeholders include
EVX, Evie Networks, Flow Power, SolarEdge, Solis, Tesla and many more.
In our view, this would narrow rather than expand consumer energy resource (CER) uptake and
participation, undermine competitive, market-neutral innovation, and continue to create
misleading narratives about what is—and is not—technically or economically feasible.
Recommendations to the Committee
- Recommend mandatory disclosure standards for DNSP claims used in public
communications (methods, assumptions, datasets). - Support a national CER data access baseline (standardised, privacy-safe, industry
accessible) to reduce information asymmetry that can be exploited by misinformation. - Recommend the independent review of networks outlined above, with a public report to
Parliament.
Read our submission here: Nexa Advisory Submission – Senate Select Committee on Information Integrity
Nexa also made a supplementary submission focused on the prevalent issue regarding
Impact of Misinformation on Transmission Development.
Australia’s energy transition is being materially delayed by the deliberate and coordinated weaponisation of social licence through misinformation and disinformation campaigns targeted at transmission infrastructure. These campaigns are increasing costs, undermining community trust, and slowing the delivery of infrastructure that is essential to system security, affordability, and decarbonisation.
Read our supplementary submission here: Nexa Advisory Supplementary Submission – Information Integrity