AGL’s submission to the Building Electrification Regulatory Impact Statement

AGL Energy (AGL) welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Victorian Government’s Building Electrification Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS).

AGL is supportive of the Victorian Government’s Building Electrification RIS and made the following key points in our submission:

• Electrification of households and business premises is a cost-effective way for most customers to reduce their energy costs over time. Taking steps to reduce the costs and barriers to electrification by setting targets, providing information and incentives, and creating an enabling regulatory environment, can reduce emissions and enable more customers to realise the direct benefits of electrification.
• Building electrification supports climate objectives, and broader objectives of affordability, health, and productivity. Electrification will also play an important role in responding to declining gas supplies in southeast Australia.
• There are challenges with increasing the pace of electrification, as well as second-order impacts from rapid electrification. However, with careful policy design and implementation these challenges and impacts can be managed.
• The targeted phase out of gas connections and replacement of gas appliance at end of life proposed in Option 3 shows the highest net economic benefit. This option minimises net replacement costs by limiting coverage of existing buildings to high gas consumption appliances at end of life in existing buildings.
• AGL supports option 3 as the preferred option, on the basis a stronger set of customer protections and exemptions are introduced to support customers through the transition.
• Importantly option 3 includes a range of exemptions where electrification would be impractical or excessively costly, AGL strongly supports these pragmatic exemptions.
• We recommend that these exemptions should be expanded to include a cost threshold for site specific work to enhance customer protections.
• Customer incentives and support to reduce the direct cost of electrification for consumers and support the scaling of the retrofit market are essential.
   

Read the full submission (PDF).