Australia’s Endeavour Energy to upgrade smart meters with sandbox waiver
Image: Intellihub
New South Wales utility Endeavour Energy has been granted a sandbox trial waiver to upgrade 5,600 smart meters.
The sandbox trial waiver, which is time limited and the first to be granted by the Australian Energy regulator (AER) through its Energy Innovation Toolkit, will enable Endeavour Energy to undertake the upgrade – an activity not permitted under current arrangements to the network service providers.
The proposal is to upgrade around 5,600 smart meters in parts of greater western Sydney, the Blue Mountains, the Southern Highlands and the Illawarra region of New South Wales.
The aim is to improve the delivery of load management services to reduce consumption at peak periods and lower electricity network costs for consumers, as well as to introduce new energy services to those participating.
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AER Chair Ms Clare Savage has declared the trial waiver as an important milestone in the AER’s regulatory sandboxing work.
“The rollout of smart meter upgrades presents significant benefits for both consumers and industry. This trial can help consumers reduce their electricity bills through access to new products and tariffs, better integrated technology and improved understanding of their energy use.”
Under the current arrangements, network service providers do not have a role in the upgrading of meters to smart meters, although in certain circumstances, they can initiate metering replacements after giving notice when the meter is faulty.
Endeavour Energy sought the waiver to run a trial investigating enabling the issue of a meter fault notice to initiate the meter swap in circumstances where there is no genuine metering fault.
Through the Energy Innovation Toolkit, the AER is able to grant waivers to support innovation, knowledge sharing and more broadly the energy transition.
As part of the conditions, Endeavour Energy has appointed Intellihub as its metering coordinator to undertake the meter replacements.
The trial will last for 30 months and learnings will be shared at its conclusion, while the lessons learnt are anticipated to help the AER better understand the impacts of distribution businesses rolling out smart meters, as well as informing future sandboxing trials..
