Last year, AEMO commenced consultations with stakeholders through an AEMO’s Engagement Model – Options Paper on ways to improve our engagement structure, including consultative forums and working groups.
This important activity – involving members, energy industry participants, and regulatory, community, and consumer stakeholders – reflects AEMO’s commitment to stakeholder engagement and transparency, as defined in the 2020 Corporate Plan.
We received a positive response and constructive feedback on the value of our forums and working groups, with support to further uplift our engagement processes.
Individual submission can be found on AEMO’s website and are summaries in a response paper, which was published in December 2020.
Today, AEMO announced our commitment to implement recommended groups and functions. These include a new high-level markets forum, a stakeholder forum, which will be open to all registered market participants and consumer advocate representatives, and a new Financial Consultation Committee.
Financial Consultation Committee
Stakeholders have requested opportunities for deeper, more timely engagement on AEMO’s draft budget and fees. Establishing the Financial Consultation Committee (FCC) will enable a deeper dive for a representative cross section of AEMO’s members, enhancing transparency and providing more granular and comprehensive feedback to the AEMO Board as they consider AEMO’s draft and final budget each year.
The FCC will serve in an advisory capacity to annually review and provide comments on the draft budget, as well as review AEMO’s projected revenues, expenses, and major project horizon for the coming three-year period. The FCC will be comprised of consumer and market participant representatives, government observers and AEMO leaders.
Next steps
Following two rounds of consultation, the AEMO team is currently hard at work implementing the new forums, mentioned above, and improving our suite of working groups. We are also working to implement a more collaborative culture of engagement through our forums and throughout our business. AEMO will work hard to transparently bring problems to the market earlier and seek stakeholder input on solutions wherever it’s possible.
You can help us by:
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Getting in touch with us with any great ideas for improving specific forums
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Reviewing who from your business attends our forums and making any relevant updates
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Filling out the stakeholder survey when it lands in your inbox
Please don’t hesitate to get in touch on stakeholderrelations@aemo.com.au