ISP Consumer Panel in their own words: June 2025

The 2026 ISP Consumer Panel members (Mark Henley – Chair, Jarra Hicks, Beverley Hughson and Craig Memery) share an update on their recent contributions to the two-year development of the 2026 ISP.

^{2026 ISP Consumer Panel members Craig Memery, Beverley Hughson, Jarra Hicks and Mark Henley.}

Over the past couple of months, the focus of the Consumer Panel’s efforts has been on reflecting consumer perspectives though two submissions in response to the second stage of the Draft 2025 Inputs, Assumptions and Scenarios Report (IASR) and the Draft ISP Methodology consultation paper.

2025 Draft Inputs, Assumptions and Scenarios Report – Stage 2

This is the first time the Inputs, Assumptions and Scenarios Report has been issued in two parts which, we suggest, reflects both the growing range of expectations placed on the ISP and the growing complexity of the plethora of topics to by synthesised into a single ISP. The next ISP will be released in June 2026. The Draft 2025 IASR – Stage 2 picked up on more complex and interrelated topics and provided some responses to the ISP review conducted by the Commonwealth and released by the Energy Ministers in early 2024.

The topics the Panel focused on in our submission were summarised as:

• Carbon budgets: In our response to AEMO’s Draft 2025 IASR – Stage 1 report, the Panel criticised the focus in this and other reports on achieving net zero CO2-e emissions by 2050, noting that the climate change specified in each of the scenario narratives (+1.5 degrees, etc) is an outcome of the rate and content of the transition process to 2050 rather than a specific net carbon output of carbon in the year 2050.
  
  We were pleased to see that the Stage 2 report brought a stronger focus on the importance of carbon budgets calculated for each scenario and that it more clearly aligned the carbon budgets.

• International alignment: We recognised that the starting point of the scenarios, narratives and forecasts should be reasonably aligned with international frameworks including the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook (WEO) scenarios, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Relative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and recognised that this somewhat limits the range of scenarios that could conceivably be considered for Australia alone.

• Sensitivity testing: The role of sensitivity testing is crucial in developing the candidate development paths that emerge from IASR data. Further discussion about which ‘sensitivities’ to model will be an important next phase of the 2026 ISP process.

• Policy: We observe that one of the ongoing discussions associated with the ISP is the relationship between national and jurisdictional policies and the extent to which they are factored into modelling and final ISP development. We think there is a role for sensitivity testing of policies that have been publicly announced but do not yet meet the strict criteria of inclusion in ISP modelling.

• Multi-sectoral modelling: This has been a significant input to developing the Stage 2 document to deal with complex interactions between the broader economy and energy sectors. Some further discussion is needed, we argued, to ‘wrestle’ with multi-sectoral modelling complexity and implications.

• Gas: The role and future of gas, including renewable gases, are crucial topics that continue to be hotly debated. AEMO’s focus on data is critical and the Panel recognises the reduced focus on hydrogen, compared to the 2024 ISP, as being realistic.

Draft ISP Methodology consultation paper

The Draft ISP Methodology is reviewed every four years, so much has changed since the last time the ISP Methodology was fully reviewed.

The Panel’s submission focused on the following, noting that the draft included eight main topics that were reviewed:

• Greater representation of distribution network capacity and increased levels of CER in the ISP
  
  Wesaid that is a priority for updating in the Methodology. The Panel recognises that valuable work on this topic has been undertaken by AEMO though remains concerned that the full extent of distributed energy considerations has been narrowed to distribution network expansion to accommodate CER/DER. Other factors also need to be incorporated including VPPs, community energy responses, innovative aggregators, and coordination efforts.

• Expanding the gas supply model
  
  The Panel supported the overall framework for enhancing the integration of gas (including renewable gas) as an input into ISP modelling, including building on the existing gas modelling for the Gas Statement of Opportunities (GSOO) and adopting an iterative approach to the relationships between the gas supply development model and the existing capacity outlook and time-sequential models. This is not to say that we are advocating for more gas in ISP planning, rather we encourage data and consumer views to be included as crucial for any considerations about the future role of gas in Australia’s energy markets.

• REZs to better reflect the treatment of large dispatchable loads
  
  The Panel recognises the importance of REZs being better able to reflect the treatment of large dispatchable loads and AEMO’s approach to better reflect greater geographic diversity in the IASR inputs. The excellent work undertaken by AEMO on factors impacting REZs is also affirmed and appreciated.

What’s next?

Two important documents were released for public consultation on 22 May 2025: the Draft 2025 Electricity Network Options Report and the Draft 2025 Gas Infrastructure Options Report. The Panel will be providing consumer perspectives on both draft reports in June.