South Australia’s energy sector is evolving.

Energy generation is decentralising, driven by changing technologies, new energy products and services, increasing consumer participation and a greater focus on matching demand and supply to reduce prices. We are moving toward a smart, decarbonised future that will deliver affordable, reliable and secure energy to consumers.

Appliances with Demand Response (DR) capabilities can be used to increase daytime operational demand voluntarily, in response to commercial financial incentives. In addition, DR capable appliances, particularly air conditioners, can be used to address periods of peak summer demand.

The Government of South Australia is currently proposing to adopt public, non-proprietary standards for DR capability for selected appliances offered for sale in South Australia. The selected products are air conditioners, electric vehicle chargers, pool pump controllers and electric storage water heaters.

Recognising that DR opportunities for electric water heaters would be limited by the current low emission, high-efficiency water heater requirements in South Australia, a revision to these water heater restrictions is also proposed.

These proposed standards will ensure early implementation in South Australia of DR capability requirements that were agreed nationally by Energy Ministers using the Commonwealth Greenhouse and Energy Minimum Standards Act 2012. As was agreed during development of the national DR measures, jurisdictions with imminent network issues requiring more controllable devices in the system may consider an earlier implementation using local regulation.

In May 2020, South Australia received advice from the Australian Energy Market Operator on challenges associated with reducing minimum demand levels in the South Australian network.

The South Australian Government accepted all of the Australian Energy Market Operator’s recommendations and released a plan to implement them in the June 2020 report Energy Solution: A secure transition to affordable renewable energy.

Flexible load response efforts have commenced as part of the:

The proposed standards and revision of the water heater restrictions are the continuation of the South Australian Government's efforts to enable flexible load.

Consultation paper

A consultation paper (PDF, 260.3 KB) has been released for stakeholder feedback. The consultation paper has been informed by two consultation papers:

Consultation sessions

This document (PDF, 915.2 KB) contains the slide presentation used at the March 2021 public consultation sessions on local South Australian demand response capabilities for selected appliances.

This document (PDF, 168.5 KB) lists some of the key issues that were raised at the sessions on 17 March 2021 and subsequent queries and provides some initial DEM responses.

Submissions

Submissions on the Consultation Paper closed on 9 April 2021. In response to the Consultation Paper, the following submissions were received:

Formal response to submissions

Formal written submissions closed on 9 April 2021. The Government of South Australia has now considered written submissions and other feedback by stakeholders and has developed a formal submission response to the issues raised: Response to feedback from consultation (PDF, 183.1 KB)

Following consideration of the broad range of stakeholder feedback, a number of amendments have been made to the proposed package of regulatory changes that were initially covered in the consultation paper. Further details of these amendments are given in South Australian demand response performance requirements: revised requirements (PDF, 146.0 KB).

Frequently asked questions

An information for consumers fact sheet (PDF, 148.7 KB) has been prepared to answer frequently asked questions.