Endeavour Energy submits Regulatory Proposal for 2024-2029

Key points

• Regulatory Proposal co-designed with customers over 20 months of deep and broad engagement.
• 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.
• Strikes the best possible balance between dependability, value for money and efficient investments in innovation to serve customers’ long-term choices and interests.

Sydney 31 January 2023: Endeavour Energy today submitted its Regulatory Proposal for 2024-2029 to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) after 20 months of engaging with customers.

“Endeavour Energy is proposing future investment that balances our customers future priorities with a sharp focus on affordability for all,” said Endeavour Energy’s Chief Executive Officer Guy Chalkley.

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

“Our customers consistently asked us to invest more in network resilience and to work towards an accelerated energy transition, enabling customers to participate affordably in a low carbon economy.

“We have listened and are proposing modest and targeted investments to deliver the service outcomes our customers most valued,” Mr Chalkley said.

These include:

• $65 million over 5 years to support new technology to host customer generated resources such as electric vehicles, solar and batteries.
• $28 million in resilience investment to deliver an expanded but highly targeted program of works, such as raising conductors to avoid floods and installing covered conductors in bushfire prone areas, where customers will experience a real difference.

Mr Chalkley said the Regulatory Proposal directly reflects customer priorities obtained during a 20-month engagement program, its most comprehensive ever.

“We engaged with 1,813 customers and informed stakeholders to deliver a Regulatory Proposal that responds to our customers preferences for a service that is dependable, affordable, modern, and resilient.

“Above 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.”

“We have proposed a 15% real reduction in operating costs and an 8% real reduction in gross capital costs compared to the current period, despite an unprecedented 10% forecast growth in customer numbers in our network area to 2029. As a result, total expenditure per customer is expected to decline by 22%, because we continue to deliver significant efficiency gains through the costs that we can control.”

Mr Chalkley noted that despite the Proposal’s focus on affordability by lowering our expenditure, prices are rising due to economic factors outside our control, including rising interest rates.

“As much as 95% of the increase in our proposed revenue for 2024-2029 is due to economic factors that are outside our control, which reflects our ongoing commitment to affordability.”

“Our restrained approach to investment means that over 2024-2029, the annual average price increase in distribution services is limited to $48 for a typical residential customer and $86 for small-medium businesses.

“This represents about a 3% increase in the customers’ total electricity bill, as distribution services comprise less than a third of a customer’s power bill.”

“We have been single-minded in our focus on the customers’ interest. At a foundational level, that means affordability.  It also means maintaining a safe, resilient, reliable electricity network, servicing the growth of our communities, and increasingly facilitating new customer energy choices,” Mr Chalkley said.

Mr Chalkley thanked the hundreds of customers, customer advocates and stakeholders who made significant contributions to the Regulatory Proposal.

“Delivering a co-designed, customer-centric Regulatory Proposal required the involvement of many people who worked closely with us over many months throughout its development. We are grateful for the time, insights, and expertise they contributed to our proposed future service plans.”

The Regulatory Proposal and a Plain English summary of the Regulatory Proposal are available here or at https://yoursay.endeavourenergy.com.au/.

Background

• Every five years, Endeavour Energy is required to submit a plan to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) that details our proposed service delivery and prices for the next five-year period.
• This Regulatory Proposal covers the period 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2029 and was required to be submitted to the AER by January 2023.

About Endeavour Energy

• Powers the lives of more than 2.6 million people, living and working in Sydney’s Greater West, the Blue Mountains, Southern Highlands, Illawarra, and South Coast of NSW.
• Our electricity supply area includes one of the fastest growing regions in Australia, with 3 million people and businesses living in Sydney’s Greater West by 2029.
• We are working with our customers to support the transition to a modern grid, where solar, batteries, microgrids and smart meters will support the shift to a low carbon environment.
• Endeavour Energy is an electricity distribution network:
  • distribution is part of a larger energy supply chain that includes generation, transmission and retailers.
  • distribution charges make up less than one third of the customer’s total energy bill.
• Endeavour Energy’s distribution costs are the second lowest (per unit of electricity served) in the National Electricity Market.