Mr. Robin McCormick:

The idea that the Senator described of adjacent businesses going into business with each other to trade energy requires changes to the tariff arrangements that exist at the moment. We would have to work with the regulator to straighten out the issues involved with that but I have heard the argument and there is merit in trying to solve it. In the main, that tends to be solved at a local distribution level.

As for community initiatives, the Department's renewable energy resources, RES, proposals recognise the benefit of community engagement in renewable energy and we will work with the Department on a proposal for auctions for the next tranche of renewable energy. The Department has made it clear that it will look to have community initiatives built into it. Some of the concerns the Senator has aired should be addressed in that process.

Investment in smart technology was raised and there is a lot of investment potential in the shape of customers. As a business, we have invested in quite a lot of innovation to manage the grid, with 65% at the moment and 75% by 2020. We constantly look for opportunities to innovate, particularly in the area of infrastructure. Building infrastructure for a grid company is a challenge and we have tried to engage much more with communities to explain the various options. We bring them to the table to encourage discussion but we also look for mechanisms for reducing the amount of infrastructure build that we need. There are good examples of infrastructure developments at the moment which are deferring infrastructure investment and make better use of the infrastructure that is already in place.