MEInetwork21 Seminar #5: Retail markets

Electricity retailers send us a single electricity bill. We pay for several things when we pay this bill, but mainly the electricity generated and the electricity network. But that isn’t everything. And how is a retailer able to provide us with a fixed electricity tariff even though the price of electricity in the wholesale market varies a great deal across the day?

In this MEInetwork21 seminar, Nick Sissons, Head of Emerging Technology at Hydro Tasmania, will explain how an electricity retailer serves its customers. This discussion will start with how the costs of physical assets, market risk, environmental charges and government regulation, as well as returns to market participants, are combined into a retail offering in a competitive electricity market. Nick will then discuss current advances in retailing, including the integration of distributed energy resources and serving ‘the prosumer’.

Speaker

Nick Sissons
Head of Emerging Technology
Hydro Tasmania

Nick is the Head of the Emerging Technology team at Hydro Tasmania, Australia’s largest generator of renewable energy. The team is focused on accelerating the transition to renewable energy by commercialising new solar, wind and battery storage products.

Nick graduated from the London School of Economics 20 years ago and has spent his career working in the energy, telecom and education sectors, usually doing strategy or product management.  When he’s not thinking about the Paris Agreement Goals, he’ll either be learning about the systemic problems of Keynesian monetary policy or playing with his two daughters in the park. Most likely the latter.

Moderator

Terry Jones
Enterprise Senior Fellow and Project Manager
Melbourne Energy Institute, The University of Melbourne