TRUenergy lists four policy ideas for NSW: access to retail load, its number-one policy-wish

Sam Bristow, Director, Business Development, TRUenergy said as a current investor in NSW generation through the TRUenergy 400MW low emissions Tallawarra project, TRUenergy was acutely aware of the difficulties and risks associated with private sector generation investments.

We need a NSW retailer: “Our goal is to continue investing in generation in NSW, but we will find it difficult to do so without changes to the policy environment in which those investments are to be made. We believe the case for change is clear. In our view, the government is at the cross-roads. It can choose to establish a policy environment that supports sustained private sector investment, otherwise it will likely need to make those investments itself”.

TRUenergy’s four policy ideas for NSW: These four policy areas were:

• access to retail load, to provide the incentive to invest in generation and to provide revenue certainty to underpin the investment over the long-term;

• sustainable retail prices, to ensure sufficient funds are recovered from customers to enable the required investment to be made;

• clarity of government investment policy in new generation, to avoid stranded investment risk; and

• carbon certainty, to enable the costs or benefits, of generation emissions signature to be factored into investment decisions with certainty.

Access to retail load the key: Retail load…”is the key policy step required for the objective of private sector investment in generation to be achieved. In particular, the right and obligation for a retailer to supply a retail load comes with a wholesaler’s market exposure risk.

Sell the NSW retailers, please: “We believe this aligns closely with the government’s natural objective of ensuring generation is built in a timely fashion to minimize security to supply risk and maintain competitive electricity prices. Therefore, we encourage the government to adopt privatization of the retail arms of the state owned corporations as its model for providing access to retail load. Such an approach will ensure the government’s chief objective of privately funded generation investment is met and can be executed quickly and clearly.”

Reference: Sam Bristow, Director, Business Development, TRUenergy Australia Pty Ltd, ABN 96 -71 611 017, Level 33, 385 Bourke St, Melbourne Victoria 3000, 29 June 2007.