New South Wales Consolidated Acts

ELECTRICITY SUPPLY ACT 1995 - SECT 15A

15A Distribution network service providers to allow small renewable energy generators to feed-in to network

(1) The objects of this section are as follows:

(a) to encourage and support persons who want to generate renewable energy as a response to climate change,

(b) to develop jobs in the renewable energy sector by assisting renewable energy generation to compete with non-renewable energy generation,

(c) to increase public exposure to renewable energy technology in order to encourage the whole community to respond to climate change.

(2) For the purposes of this section a generator is a "complying generator" if the generator:

(a) is a solar photovoltaic generator, a wind turbine, or a renewable energy generator of a class prescribed by the regulations, that has a generating capacity of no more than 10 kilowatts, and

(b) is installed and connected to the distribution network in a manner that provides for all the electricity generated by the generator to be supplied to the distribution network and allows the relevant distribution network service provider to measure at any instant the amount of electricity supplied, and

(c) complies with, and is installed and connected in a manner that complies with, any safety, technical or metering requirements that may be prescribed by the regulations or market operations rules.

(3) A distribution network service provider must, on application by or on behalf of a small retail customer, provide customer connection services so as to connect, or permit to be connected, to its distribution network a complying generator if:

(a) the generator is to be installed at premises that are in the distribution network service provider’s distribution district, and

(b) the small retail customer has a right under section 15 to be provided with customer connection services at those premises.

(4) The right that a person has under this section to have premises provided with customer connection services is subject to any provision of this Act or the regulations that authorises the disconnection of those premises from, or the refusal to connect those premises to, a distribution system.

(5) A distribution network service provider must record a credit against charges payable at the amount of $0.20 (or such other amount as may be prescribed by the regulations) per kilowatt hour in respect of a small retail customer for electricity that:

(a) is produced by a complying generator installed and connected at the premises of the small retail customer, and

(b) is supplied to the distribution network by the small retail customer.

(6) A distribution network service provider must, in accordance with the regulations, provide a retail supplier with:

(a) details of the amount of credit that has been recorded under this section for electricity supplied to the network by each small retail customer of the retail supplier, and

(b) such other information as may be required to be supplied by the regulations or the market operations rules.

(7) A distribution network service provider must provide to the Minister and the Director-General the following information at such times as may be prescribed by the regulations:

(a) the total number of small retail customers in the distribution network service provider’s distribution district who have installed and connected a complying generator, and

(b) the postcodes of those small retail customers, and

(c) the total generating capacity of all such generators in the distribution district, and

(d) such information as is available to the distribution network service provider about the amount of electricity supplied to the distribution network by complying generators in the distribution network service provider’s distribution district during such periods as may be prescribed by the regulations, and

(e) any other matter that may be prescribed by the regulations.

(8) It is a condition of a distribution network service provider’s licence that the distribution network service provider must not contravene this section.

(8A) The Director-General or a distribution network service provider may, at any time, require a person to provide information by statutory declaration in order to determine the person’s eligibility to have a credit recorded in respect of the person under this section.

(8B) A person must within 7 days after any change in the person’s circumstances (including any change to a generator on premises owned or occupied by the person) notify a distribution network service provider of that change if the change may cause the person to be no longer eligible to have a credit recorded (or to have a credit recorded at a particular rate) by the provider in respect of the person under this section.

Maximum penalty: 1,000 penalty units.

(8C) The Minister may, by notice published in the Gazette, declare that as from a specified date, no payments will be made under the scheme established by this section in respect of new applicants.

Note: See notice published in Gazette No 67 of 1.7.2011, p 4801.

(8D) The Minister may publish a notice under this section only if the Minister is satisfied that the total generating capacity of all complying generators installed and connected under this section has reached 300 megawatts.

(8E) A distribution network service provider is not to record a credit under this section, and a retail supplier is not to pay an amount under section 34A, in respect of electricity produced by a generator that is first connected to the distribution network on or after the date specified in a notice under this section.

(8F) The regulations may contain provisions of a savings or transitional nature consequent on the making of a regulation under subsection (5) or the publication of a notice under subsection (8C).

(9) This section and section 34A are repealed on 31 December 2016.