Expressions of Interest - Ausgrid Resilience Advisory Panel

Project Overview

Acknowledgment of Country

Ausgrid acknowledges and pays respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of this land, their unique ability to care for Country and deep spiritual connection to it. We honour Elders past, present and future, understanding their knowledge and wisdom ensures continuation of culture and traditional practices.

About Ausgrid's Climate Resilience Program

Ausgrid is the largest distributor of electricity on Australia's east coast.

We're a team of over 3000 people that prioritise safety, affordability and reliability in all that we do. Our people operate, maintain and repair the poles and wires that deliver electrivity to around 1.8 million homes and businesses, touching over four million people in NSW, across Sydney, the Central Coast and the Hunter region.

Over the 15-year period to FY2023, 62 percent of supply outages to customers in Ausgrid’s operating area were caused by climate related weather events.

Climate change modelling indicates that Ausgrid’s climate risk will grow by 1% on average each year, negatively impacting our resilience to wide area, long duration outages.

The Climate Resilience Program targets mitigation of this growth in risk.

In November 2023, Ausgrid submitted a revised proposal to the Australian Energy Regulator to seek funding for targeted investment in resilience to protect the long-term interests of customers and maintain current levels of resilience in the face of climate change. This proposal can be found here.

Ausgrid’s Resilience Advisory Panel Purpose

The Resilience Advisory Panel (RAP) provides a forum for Ausgrid, resilience subject matter experts and customer advocates to provide expertise, technical advice and customer advocacy advice on the delivery of the Ausgrid Climate Resilience Program and future climate resilience planning opportunities that will support the long-term interests of customers.

The RAP will have a key role in:

Advising on delivery of the 2024-29 Climate Resilience Program including:
- supporting the development of metrics to measure Program success and demonstrate return on investment
- evaluating prioritisation and delivery of resilience projects against agreed Program and customer objectives to ensure intended benefits are realised
- ensuring community engagement feedback is considered in the assessment of investment effectiveness
- drawing out key insights in a multi-disciplinary context to review and assess investment effectiveness and suggest adaptive planning responses if required
Enabling Ausgrid to realise opportunities in planning for future regulatory periods by:
- leveraging expertise, industry insights and collaborations to identify and promote opportunities for influencing resilience policy and regulatory reform
- integrating innovative and up to date resilience insights and science in
- planning discussions to ensure they are informed by a credible knowledge and evidence base
- Reviewing and engaging on scenarios to anticipate future network requirements and approaches to managing uncertainty and associated risks.

The RAP will serve as a specialist committee of Ausgrid’s Customer Consultative Committee (CCC) – the overarching body for engaging with customer advocates. More information on the CCC can be found here.

Resilience Advisory Panel Membership - Skills and experience

A productive RAP will have a membership mix of diverse perspectives, customer representation and technical expertise. Ausgrid is seeking members with expertise and experience in each of the below areas to support us to deliver our regulatory commitments and future ambitions. Panel members should cover one or more of these categories.

Expertise	Desirable Qualifications/experience
Climate science	PhD in climate science Specific expertise in climate change perils including wind, bushfire, heat and flood perils
Economics/Regulatory Framework	Qualifications in law, economics, or equivalent General experience in utilities or renewable energy Sound knowledge of Australia’s energy regulatory environment
Policy	Qualifications in communications, education, sustainability, policy or equivalent Extensive energy industry experience and/or technical expertise Demonstrated ability to influence policy settings
Community Engagement & Customer Advocacy	Knowledge of energy sector engagement best practice and research methodology IAP2 membership Other not for profit committee or industry association memberships or board representation Advocacy experience on behalf of one or more customer groups within the Ausgrid network area
General Subject Matter Expert	A combination of at least one qualification or relevant experience from each of the above category

Meetings

The RAP is intended to meet quarterly at Ausgrid’s offices or online. Members will be appointed to the RAP for a term of two years.

Remuneration

Members will be remunerated with a sitting fee for formal RAP meetings at an agreed rate. Details will be provided on request.

It is also intended that RAP members be available periodically for advice on ad hoc resilience matters as they arise (to be remunerated as appropriate according to agreed terms).

Applications are open until 6pm 30 August 2024

Please submit your expression of interest in membership of Ausgrid’s Resilience Advisory Panel hereor fill in the form below