ERM Power responds to the ‘cost benefit assessment of the demand response mechanism’ consultation paper

Dr Fiona Simon from ERM Power has sent this response to the Department of Industry in regards to the ‘cost benefit assessment of the demand response mechanism’ consultation paper. Ultimately, Dr Simon was forced to write “ERM Power has considered our response to the paper and must unfortunately advise that we do not have the opportunity to address these issues given the short time to provide submissions”. She was however able to provide some commentary; “Overall we believe that the DRM as proposed by the AEMC and then assessed by AEMO is an inappropriate policy measure. Not only is demand response possible in the current environment (and ERM Power has a well – regarded demand response programme) but declining demand would indicate that whatever business case may have looked promising for the model a few years ago would be greatly reduced now. When we compare this to the implementation costs for the DRM we remain unconvinced that this policy will do anything more than impose further costs on all consumers for the (questionable) benefit of a few.”

The original report compiled by Oakley Greenwood can be found here.