About this report
Who is Power and Water?
We are the essential service provider in the Northern Territory (NT) providing electricity, gas, water and sewerage services as seen in Figure 1. Our purpose is to make a difference to the lives of Territorians. Our business connects our communities to reliable and affordable essential services and provides a foundation for economic growth.
What is this Draft Plan about?
Our electricity services provide power to 90 townships and communities across a vast landmass. Our three largest networks in Darwin- Katherine, Alice Springs and Tennant Creek are under price regulation. The networks provide electricity to 72,000 residential customers and 11,000 businesses.
Every five years, the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) undertakes a review of our proposed expenditure, revenue and tariff structures for our regulated networks. Our next regulatory period is from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2029 (the 2024-29 regulatory period). The AER review process takes about 18 months with our initial regulatory proposal due on 31 January 2023.
This Draft Plan sets out our proposed plans for our upcoming 2024-29 regulatory period. Its purpose is to capture feedback from our customers and broader stakeholders on our plans before submitting our initial regulatory proposal to the AER.
As an essential service provider our role is to serve the community. It is vital that we listen to what our customers expect from our network both now and into the future. The five year regulatory proposal provides an important opportunity for customers to provide input into our strategic direction, and ensure their values, vision and priorities are reflected in our five-year expenditure plans.
Over the last year, we have met with our customers, energy partners and government representatives to hear what is important to them. This included an innovative new way to engage with everyday residential customers in Darwin- Katherine and Alice Springs – our People's Panels. Our Draft Plan seeks to show a ‘line of sight’ between the priorities of our People's Panels and our five-year plans.
This is only the start of our engagement journey. There are areas of our plans where we have not engaged with stakeholders. The Draft Plan sets out questions for customer feedback. We will be engaging further with our customers before finalising our proposal on 31 January 2023.
This is only the start of our engagement journey. There are areas of our plans where we have not engaged with stakeholders. The Draft Plan sets out questions for customer feedback. We will be engaging further with our customers before finalising our proposal on 31 January 2023.
Consultations on the Draft Plan closed on 13 September 2022.
Figure 1 - Snapshot of our network