AEMO releases 30-year electricity market roadmap

30/06/2022

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) today published the 2022 Integrated System Plan (ISP), outlining a 30-year roadmap of investments for the National Electricity Market (NEM).

AEMO has involved more than 1,500 stakeholders – including policy makers, governments, consumers and energy industry representatives – to produce its third ISP, based on rigorous economic and engineering analysis.

AEMO CEO, Daniel Westerman, said: “Australia is experiencing a complex, rapid and irreversible energy transformation.”

“The 2022 ISP informs Australia’s energy transformation, based on an ‘optimal development path’ of essential transmission investments that will efficiently enable low-cost, firmed renewable energy to replace exiting coal generation.

“These transmission projects are forecast to deliver $28 billion in net market benefits, returning 2.2 times their cost of $12.7 billion, which represents just 7% of the total generation, storage and network investment in the NEM,” he said.

The National Electricity Market (NEM) operates on one of the world’s longest interconnected power systems, stretching from Port Douglas in Queensland to Port Lincoln in South Australia and across the Bass Strait to Tasmania – a distance of around 5,000 kilometres.

The NEM spans Australia’s eastern and south-eastern coasts and comprises of five interconnected states that also act as price regions: Queensland, New South Wales (including the Australian Capital Territory), South Australia, Victoria, and Tasmania.

Western Australia and the Northern Territory are not connected to the NEM, primarily due to the distance between networks. The NEM’s transmission network carries power from electricity generators to large industrial energy users and local electricity distributors across the five regions. These assets are owned and operated by state governments, or private businesses.