Policy

Should your network company own the charger outside your house? That question is now formally open

If you cannot charge an electric car at home, because you are in an apartment or a townhouse or have no off-street parking, somebody has to put a charger on your street. Two organisations have asked the national rule-maker for opposite answers about who that somebody should be. Energy Networks Australia wants distribution networks allowed to install and operate kerbside chargers as a regulated service, which is the part that reaches your bill: regulated costs are recovered through network charges paid by everyone. Nexa Advisory wants the rules that protect competing charge point operators strengthened instead. Both requests are being considered alongside the AEMC's new Electricity Network Regulation Review, which started on 25 June. Submissions closed on 23 July. The public forum was held in Sydney on 18 August 2026.

Roughly a third to a half of a typical electricity bill is not the electricity. It is the poles, wires, substations and transformers that carry it, recovered as network charges, and the amount a network business is allowed to recover is set by regulation rather than by competition. That is the deal: a network is a natural monopoly, so instead of rivals holding its prices down, a regulator does. Which services sit inside that regulated bargain, and which are left to companies competing for your money, is one of the quietly consequential questions in Australian energy. On 25 June the Australian Energy Market Commission opened it formally.

The AEMC published the final Terms of Reference and a first consultation paper for its Electricity Network Regulation Review, structured as two packages. Package 1, the one now underway, examines what services networks should provide and which should be subject to competition, including service classification, ring-fencing, and the arrangements governing how network businesses interact with contestable markets. Package 2 takes on how the framework keeps networks spending efficiently, how risks and costs are shared between network businesses and consumers, and whether the process for setting network revenues is working.

AEMC Chair Anna Collyer put the reason for the timing in terms of what has already changed underneath the rules. Renewables now account for more than half of electricity generation in the national market, she said, and distribution networks are being transformed with nearly half a million home batteries installed in the past five years and last month, one in six cars purchased was fully electric. Her framing of the problem is worth quoting directly, because it is the whole review in a sentence: Power now flows in two directions, new products and services are rapidly emerging, and the rules that govern how networks operate and get paid need to reflect that.

The kerbside charging question, and why it lands on your bill

Two rule change requests were initiated alongside Package 1, and they pull in opposite directions on the same point.

Energy Networks Australia, the industry body for network businesses, proposes allowing distribution networks to install and operate kerbside EV charging infrastructure as a regulated service. The attraction is straightforward: networks already own the assets in the street and the connection to them, and public charging is thinnest exactly where people cannot charge at home. The consequence is equally straightforward. A regulated service is paid for through the regulated revenue a network is allowed to recover, which means through network charges on every customer's bill, including customers who do not own a car.

Nexa Advisory proposes the mirror image: strengthening the rules that govern how network businesses operate in markets where third parties, such as charge point operators, can also compete. That is the ring-fencing question. A monopoly with a guaranteed revenue stream competing against companies that have to win customers is a structural mismatch, and ring-fencing rules exist to stop the monopoly using one to advantage the other.

Ms Collyer said the requests raise fundamental questions, including whether and how electricity networks should play a role in providing EV charging infrastructure, and under what conditions, and named the group the whole argument is about: people who cannot charge at home, those in apartments, townhouses, or without off-street parking.

Our view, clearly labelled as such: the honest tension here is not networks versus competitors, it is speed versus cost discipline. Letting networks build kerbside charging would almost certainly get chargers into apartment-heavy streets faster, because the entity that owns the street assets does not have to negotiate for access to them, and because regulated revenue does not require a business case that stacks up against consumer demand. That second reason is also exactly why it should be examined carefully rather than waved through. Regulated infrastructure that nobody had to justify commercially is how you end up paying, for decades, through a line item on a bill you cannot shop around.

Two more moving parts, and both matter

The AEMC is separately progressing a rule change request from the Commonwealth Government tied to its $40 million Accelerating EV Charging Program. That one is on an accelerated timeline, with a final determination expected by the end of 2026 so the program can commence in 2027. So there is public money moving on a faster clock than the review examining the framework it will operate inside.

The Australian Energy Regulator, a different body, also initiated on the same day a combined review of its Distribution Ring-Fencing Guideline and Shared Asset Guideline. The division of labour is that the AER's review handles what its own guidelines can fix now, while the AEMC's considers whether the National Electricity Rules themselves need to change. The two bodies say they will work together throughout so issues land in the right forum.

The dates that matter

Submissions on the Package 1 consultation paper closed on 23 July 2026. If you are reading this now, that window has shut, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What is still ahead:

• 18 August 2026 - an in-person public forum in Sydney, covering Package 1 and Package 2 plus both EV charging rule change requests. Registration is via the AEMC's project page.
• October 2026 - a second public forum.
• End of 2026 - the AEMC describes the review as a six-month sprint to determine key policy principles, concluding then.
• Fourth quarter 2027 - the date the AEMC's own media release gives for Package 2 to conclude with a final report.

Those last two figures come from different AEMC pages and we have not been able to reconcile them from published material. The most likely reading is that the policy principles are settled by the end of 2026 and Package 2's formal report follows in late 2027, but that is our inference and we are flagging it rather than asserting it. If you are tracking when a decision actually binds, the 2027 date is the one to watch.

What the submissions actually said

Submissions closed on 23 July and the Commission has published 43 of them. We read four: both proponents, one charge point operator and the regulator. The field does not split the way a two-sided framing suggests, and the argument has a specific flashpoint.

Nexa Advisory asks the Commission to reject the Energy Networks Australia rule change outright. Its stated grounds are that there is no evidence of a market failure in the provision of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and that efficient provision by distribution networks is unlikely because they would not face the right incentives.

Evie Networks, which builds and runs public chargers commercially and so has money riding on the answer, also does not support the rule change. Its objection is that the proposal would create an enduring regulated distribution charging service and let networks provide public charging as a direct control service despite a competitive market already existing, and without demonstrating that network ownership is the better answer. It puts an alternative on the table rather than only objecting: let others build, while the network keeps responsibility for technical standards, approval and energisation, and asks the Commission to assess that option instead of assuming the barriers networks control are best fixed by letting networks own the assets.

The Australian Energy Regulator does not take a side on ownership in its submission. It supports the Commission considering service classification, ring-fencing, cost allocation, connections, facility access and shared assets together, because those frameworks collectively regulate the boundary between regulated and competitive activity. It also notes it has its own review of the ring-fencing guideline for electricity distribution under way, which matters because that guideline is the instrument doing the work whichever way the rule change goes.

The argument has a real test case

Both sides point at the same thing. In October 2025 the AER granted CitiPower, Powercor and United Energy a ring-fencing waiver for kerbside charging infrastructure. Nexa Advisory's rule change request raises stakeholder concern that the waiver shows how networks entering this market can distort competition by leveraging monopoly assets.

Energy Networks Australia's answer is the more interesting half. Its submission, signed by Acting Chief Executive Dominic Adams, argues that without trial waivers networks are limited in their ability to understand new technologies, publish what they learn and deliver long-term efficiency gains. On the waiver specifically it makes a factual point: when the application was made there was no kerbside charging in Victoria at all and very limited public charging, in contrast to other states, and the trial's purpose was to understand the effect of charging on the local network, how customers behave and how the connection process works.

Our view, labelled as such. That is a genuine disagreement about sequence rather than principle, and it is more useful than the ownership question it sits inside. If a network builds because nobody else will, the market failure argument is strong. If it builds where operators already compete, Evie's objection is strong. Whether the Commission treats the Victorian waiver as evidence of the first or a warning about the second is the thing to watch on 18 August.

Update, 23 August 2026. The Sydney forum has since been held and more submissions have been published. We have followed this up with a separate piece on the decision that determines whose bill a network-built charger lands on: who pays for the kerbside charger.

Sources

1. Australian Energy Market Commission, Electricity Network Regulation Review, Package 1 submissions register (read 1 August 2026): that 43 submissions to the consultation paper have been published.
2. Nexa Advisory, submission to Package 1 (downloaded and read 1 August 2026): that it does not support the ENA rule change and urges the Commission to reject it, on the grounds of no evidence of market failure in charging infrastructure and that efficient provision by distribution networks is unlikely on incentives.
3. Evie Networks, submission to Package 1 (downloaded and read 1 August 2026): that it does not support the rule change, its characterisation of the proposal as an enduring regulated distribution charging service provided as a direct control service despite a competitive market, and its alternative in which others build while the network retains technical standards, approval and energisation.
4. Energy Networks Australia, submission to Package 1, signed by Acting Chief Executive Dominic Adams (downloaded and read 1 August 2026): its argument on trial waivers and learning, and its account of the CitiPower, Powercor and United Energy kerbside charging waiver including that there was no kerbside charging in Victoria at the time of application.
5. Australian Energy Regulator, submission to Package 1 (downloaded and read 1 August 2026): its support for considering service classification, ring-fencing, cost allocation, connections, facility access and shared assets together, and that its own ring-fencing guideline review for electricity distribution is under way.
6. Australian Energy Market Commission, AEMC commences review of electricity network regulation (media release, 25 June 2026): the review's commencement and final Terms of Reference, the Package 1 and Package 2 scope, both EV charging rule change requests and their proponents, the Commonwealth $40 million Accelerating EV Charging Program timeline, the AER's parallel ring-fencing and shared-asset guideline review, the Q4 2027 date for Package 2, and all quotes from Chair Anna Collyer.
7. Australian Energy Market Commission, Electricity Network Regulation Review - Package 1 (project page, read 30 July 2026): the 23 July 2026 submission close, the 18 August 2026 Sydney public forum covering both packages and both rule changes, the second forum in October 2026, and the description of the review as a six-month sprint concluding at the end of 2026.

Updated 1 August 2026. The original reported that submissions had closed but not what they said. We have since read four of the 43 published submissions: Nexa Advisory and Evie Networks both oppose the rule change, the AER takes no side on ownership but has its own ring-fencing guideline review running, and Energy Networks Australia defends the Victorian kerbside waiver both sides point at. Nothing in the original was wrong.

Spotted an error, or know the forum details we have missed? Tell us and we will check it against the sources and log the outcome here.