The purpose of the review was to answer two questions:

  1. How to improve competition, reliability, and efficiency on secondary networks?
  2. What is the appropriate scope of the Authority’s regulatory activities relating to secondary networks?

The RAG provided four broad sets of recommendations:

  1. The Authority should not automatically limit the number or type of secondary networks.
  2. Secondary networks should be subject to the Electricity Industry Participation Code 2010 and market facilitation measures where there is a long-term benefit for consumers.
  3. More information about the number of secondary networks, and the number of consumers supplied by secondary networks, is required to fully assess the costs and benefits of regulating secondary networks.
  4. Several, mainly technical, recommendations relating to:
    1. improving reliability outcomes for consumers on two types of secondary networks: embedded networks and network extensions
    2. promoting competition and improving the efficient operation of the electricity industry by reducing the costs for retailers of doing business with embedded networks.

We endorsed the majority of the RAG’s recommendations and will further consider the RAG’s remaining recommendations as part of other projects in our work programme.