Pursuant to Part 4 of the
Essential Services Commission Act, the Commission is empowered to make industry codes and rules regulating the conduct or operations of a regulated industry or regulated entities. The Commission has made a number of relevant industry codes and compliance with relevant codes is a mandatory condition of each electricity and gas licence issued by the Commission.
Guidelines
Pursuant to section 8 of the Essential Services Commission Act, the Commission is empowered to publish guidelines relating to the performance of its functions as set out in section 5 of that Act (which include performance monitoring and compliance). In order to assist the Commission to fulfil various functions, it has issued the guidelines to licensees relating to the manner in which they report various matters to the Commission.
Retail Market Rules
The Gas Act 1997 provides for the establishment of Retail Market Rules (RMR) to facilitate the operation of the gas retail market in SA, and for a retail market administrator, to operate the RMR. REMCo (Retail Energy Market Company Ltd) is the retail market administrator in SA.
The Minister for Energy approved the initial set of RMR in June 2004, prior to commencement of the gas retail market on 28 July 2004. REMCo is required to submit to the Commission for its approval any proposals for amendments to the RMR. Regulation 5(3b) of the Gas Regulations 1997 establishes a process to be used by the Commission in considering proposed RMR amendments.
From 1 October 2009, the South Australian functions carried out by REMCo transferred to the Australian Energy Market Operator AEMO a single national market operator for gas and electricity. AEMO is not required to be licensed in respect of its operations in South Australia.
