Page 1827 - Week 06 - Thursday, 5 June 2014
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way these networks are being used and how energy is being created and distributed is changing. This change is happening at a rapid pace. Utility infrastructure and networks that provide an energy or water service to the public require continuity of planning, operation, maintenance and supply of service. Utilities are rightly expected to operate with minimal interruption to supply. Utilities are also expected to design, plan and construct new infrastructure and provide uninterrupted supply to that infrastructure.
This government is committed to adapting to climate change and mitigating the causes of climate change. Adaptation includes promoting the efficient use of energy and water, including secondary water. Mitigating the causes of climate change, the government has set a target of 90 per cent of the ACT’s electricity being sourced from renewable energy and a target of a 40 per cent reduction in the ACT’s greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020.
New ways of generating, harnessing and distributing energy and water are being constructed right now. Our utility networks no longer flow in one direction; they are interactive. And no longer are the large-scale utility networks the only means of distributing energy and water. The change of approach towards power generation, power sharing, energy efficiency and utilisation of energy through heating and cooling does not change, though, the fundamentals for technical regulation, being life safety, health and safety, reliability and efficiency.
This bill is designed to address the regulatory needs of the traditional utilities and the new utilities. The bill is crafted to deal with the fact that the ACT is a city-state with state and municipal functions. The government has to use the small size of our territory to its advantage. Consequently, the types and sizes of utilities covered in the bill are broad. But the bill is designed to enable the technical regulation to be tailored to the size and complexity of the utility rather than applying a one size fits all approach.
I will briefly give an overview of the changes outlined in this bill.
The bill takes technical regulation out of the Utilities Act and makes a separate Utilities (Technical Regulation) Act. The Utilities Act will then predominantly be an act to license larger utilities and provide for the economic regulation of these utilities. The bill then establishes a modern scheme to regulate licensed utilities that currently do not require a licence. The bill expands a traditional definition of utility service. In addition to the traditional utility services under the Utilities Act, the bill defines electricity generation, electricity transmission and district energy services as regulated utility services.
When the Utilities Act was made 14 years ago, large-scale generation and significant transmission networks did not exist in the ACT. The advent of new sources and means of energy generation, and the evolving applications of new technology in district energy services, means that energy and water services are no longer a sole, independent service in each premise. Energy and water services can be combined and supplied to multiple premises. A district energy service, for example, can mean the provision of locally generated energy to create electricity and hot or chilled water to multiple buildings.
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