The Victorian Government has moved to tighten oversight of Victoria’s privatised electricity distributors, introducing legislation aimed at reducing power outages during heatwaves, bushfires and other extreme weather events.
Minister for Energy and Resources Lily D’Ambrosio introduced what the government describes as nation-leading laws to Parliament on Wednesday, requiring electricity distribution businesses to develop and publish five-year network resilience plans, backed by penalties for failing to comply.
Victoria’s electricity distribution network was privatised in the 1990s and is now owned and operated by private companies, with their network spending approved every five years by the Australian Energy Regulator. The government argues that as climate change drives more frequent and intense weather events, existing arrangements have not gone far enough to protect local communities from outages.
The push follows January’s heatwaves and bushfires, which placed heavy strain on poles and wires across the state. The government says those events underlined the need for private operators to invest more in resilience, particularly in regional and high-risk areas.
“Victoria has done more than any other state to increase the resilience of our network in the face of increasingly extreme weather,” Ms D’Ambrosio said. “We’ve seen the impact that January’s heatwaves and bushfires had on Victoria’s electricity network and we need to ensure that distribution networks and local communities are protected from power outages.”
Victoria has done more than any other state to increase the resilience of our network in the face of increasingly extreme weather: Minister D’Ambrosio
If passed, the legislation will require network companies to submit their Network Resilience Plans to Energy Safe Victoria, the state’s independent regulator. Energy Safe Victoria will oversee implementation and investment, with penalties of up to $1.2 million for companies that fail to meet their obligations.
The government says Victoria was already the first state to require distributors to plan for resilience, after pushing changes last year to national rules so the AER must consider network resilience when assessing five-year network plans. The new laws would add a separate, publicly available planning requirement at the state level.
Resilience measures could include investments such as batteries, stand-alone power systems and extra feeder lines for remote communities. The reforms are framed as particularly important for vulnerable Victorians, including older residents and people who rely on life-support equipment.
The legislation also draws on recommendations from the Victorian Government’s independent Electricity Distribution Network Resilience Review completed in 2022, which examined how the grid could better withstand extreme conditions.
The bill now heads to Parliament, where its passage would give Victoria’s regulator stronger powers to ensure private network owners plan, publish and invest for a grid increasingly tested by a hotter and more volatile climate.
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