The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) has released a new rule giving the Australian Energy Regulator responsibility for producing, maintaining and updating a guideline of common definitions of distribution reliability measures.

The guideline is likely to promote consistency and transparency in the specification and reporting of distribution reliability measures. This is likely to lead to more effective benchmarking and incentive schemes which will better enable the AER to determine revenue allowances for distribution network service providers, and to better consider price and reliability outcomes for consumers.

The final rule determination relates to a rule change request submitted by the COAG Energy Council on
25 May 2015. The rule change request stemmed from recommendations in the AEMC’s reports into the national framework for distribution reliability and distribution reliability measures in 2013 and 2014, which recommended a common set of distribution reliability measures be developed. Links to these reviews can be found below.