An expert energy panel that discussed complex issues and provided clear, independent advice and recommendations that have the long-term interests of customers in mind.

A People’s Panel which included approximately 50 diverse customers who make up a statistical representation of customers in our network area.

Six customer voice groups, including up to 18 members, met four times. These groups included customers with different lived experience. This included customers with disability, customers who experience mental health difficulties, customers from multicultural communities, young people, First Nations Peoples, and seniors. Each group had a senior leader from Jemena to help champion the group to connect, listen and understand their needs. The groups each provided advice and insights to the People’s Panel for their consideration in making recommendations given their unique needs.

Conducting a bespoke survey of 1,000 residential customers from across our network for the price reset to gain a broad spectrum of views and data points.

Joint engagement sessions with Victorian electricity distribution network service providers across the topics of framework and approach, affordability and equity, reliability and resilience, network tariffs and customers experiencing vulnerability.

Small business forums, surveys and in-depth interviews/meetings with diverse small to medium sized businesses across our network.

Surveys, large user forum and in-depth meetings to engage with large commercial customers.

Survey housing developers and designers of houses to understand their needs.

Bespoke engagement with electricity retailers and retailer bodies, including retailer forums, surveys, in-depth interviews/meetings and engagement with customers affected by family violence.

Surveys, in-depth interviews/meetings and Local Council Forums to understand the needs of local councils and the local communities they service.

Involving our Customer Council members, including providing them ongoing oversight of the engagement program and a dedicated workshop on the price reset.

Adapt the electricity distribution network to accommodate the additional demands expected from the electrification of the gas and transport sectors and for the evolving needs of our new and existing electricity customers.

Engage with our customers using a multi-channelled approach, maximising the capabilities of our existing network, using pricing incentives, non-network alternatives and other flexible distribution services that enable and optimise consumer energy resources.

Continue to adopt digital systems and enhanced distribution services that support the energy transition to enable and facilitate competition and new services for energy market participants using enhanced applications, processes, automation, data and analytics, including functions that support the Australian Energy Market Operator in its role to maintain power system security.

Enhancing our accessibility and communication with customers is a vital step to increasing the positive experience customers have when engaging with us.

We have dedicated expenditure to enhance the communication to all of our customers by:

• Developing simple and accessible customer communications across all our channels and in multiple languages to support customer needs
• Upgrading customer systems to allow for near real-time communications with customers using web chat and two-way SMS to meet their needs better
• Collaborating with local councils, community groups, the Victorian Government, and emergency services to improve customer communications, particularly on policy development and during major outages and emergencies.

We will champion the use of renewable energy generation by exploring:

• Implementing batteries in Underground Residential Distribution Developments (BURDD).
• Encouraging high voltage connected grid-scale energy solutions to large commercial and industrial customers and partners by enhancing our connection processes. We could also undertake research to identify the impacts on the electricity network through analysis to allocate hosting capacity for electricity exports more equitably
• Supporting shared energy infrastructure solutions in greenfield sites, such as batteries, EV charging, and community generation
• Working with developers on standards and requirements for ‘green estates’ that integrate energy storage with solar generation from the outset

Within our existing capability to ensure efficiency by:

• Collaborating with our peer electricity distribution network service provider (nationally and internationally) on innovations and sharing learnings (for example, technical specifications and knowledge sharing on energy storage, tariffs, data sharing, digitisation and electrification)
• Collaborating and information sharing with the Centre for New Energy Technologies (C4NET) to understand energy and customer data, research and insights.
• Collaborating and sharing information with the Department of Energy Environment and Climate Action and the AER to investigate network efficiencies.
• Collaborating and engaging with retailers to deliver beneficial outcomes to customers.
• Use trials, partnerships and research as a means of wider collaboration and socialisation.

As a part of our existing practices, we will build upon our existing work to ensure corporate responsibility and address sustainability by:

• Implementing policies and practices that support a more sustainable business, including our:
  • corporate-level net-zero commitment by 2050.
  • carbon offset strategies, including pursuing re-vegetation initiatives.
  • sustainability requirements as part of procurement policy and strategy.

• Implementing sustainable procurement strategies to ensure that materials we purchase to build the electricity network contribute to a circular economy
• Aligning our operations to the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia rating criteria.
• Implementing a sustainability management system – for the entire asset lifecycle.

To educate customers we need a dedicated awareness campaign, and a customer facing channel that helps empower customers to increase their knowledge and energy literacy in a way that suits them.

We will use this expenditure to deliver customer education by:

• Creating a new dedicated customer online portal that provides tailored information to customers based on their expressed preferences, language, and needs. The portal would also include AI to drive tailored information to empower customers to make decisions about sustainable energy usage.
• Developing an integrated marketing campaign to generate awareness of energy-saving tips, the energy supply chain, rooftop solar, energy-efficient appliances, pricing and tariffs, and understanding electricity bills
• We will enhance our existing customer channels and touchpoints, by integrating our customer applications and back-end customer knowledge management and providing customers with one seamless customer experience
• Partner with local councils and community groups to build broader awareness of energy-saving tips, energy-efficient appliances and understanding of electricity bills.

We will take the learnings and insights from the engagement process to evaluate our business-as-usual engagement with our electricity customers to identify:

• ways we can continue to build our relationship with First Nations communities in our network area and across Victoria
• new approaches to ongoing engagement with our customers, including ongoing engagement with diverse residential customers
• ways we can continue our engagement with customers and stakeholders who participated in the engagement process.

We will ensure the protection of land and mitigate the risks to the environment caused by the interaction of trees and power lines through:

• continuing to develop and improve methods of environmental management and ongoing development of fire-safe distribution assets
• implementing training standards to provide the ‘best practice’ management of vegetation
• annually researching and compiling lists of trees deemed to be culturally or environmentally significant
• annually researching and compiling listings of habitat trees containing fauna that is listed in the Threatened Invertebrate/Vertebrate Fauna List with a conservation status in Victoria of ‘vulnerable’, ‘endangered’ or ‘critically endangered’.

We will increase our cyber security and strengthen data protection for our customers by integrating new digital capabilities into the network and dynamic operations. This will increase the data, analytics, systems, and cyber security capabilities required to meet our customers’ needs, support the network and the integration of renewable energy.

We will implement digital technologies that enable devices across the electricity network to communicate and share data that might be useful for both customers and electricity network management.

This includes smart meters, sensors, automation, and other digital network technologies, as well as advanced metering infrastructure and smart grid technologies, to reduce other costs in the electricity supply chain, including network investments, to realise financial savings in the long term.

We will achieve this by Implementing a Future Network Strategy that includes:

• Analysis of near real-time Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) data, the metering and communications infrastructure we use to read meters remotely and obtain data for analysis. We use this data to help run the electricity network more efficiently and resolve problems more quickly.
• Dynamic network configuration that performs hourly dynamic status changes of sectionalising and tie switches to reduce network line losses, minimise loss of load, or increase hosting capacity for distributed energy resources.
• Dynamic voltage management, an advanced operating technology that automatically optimises voltages on the electricity network depending on conditions throughout the day.
• Flexible services, a range of services (for example, load switching at critical times) that we can procure from customers and their representatives to avoid expensive electricity network upgrades. This allows us to run the network more efficiently.
• Grid stability market enablement, a suite of digital systems that allow us to procure and trade flexible services.
• Network analytics program – is a suite of sophisticated machine learning and artificial intelligence systems that allows us to analyse network data in new ways to identify opportunities to deliver better service and run the electricity network more efficiently.
• Increasing data, visibility and analytics through a Strategic Network Analytics Platform, a platform for building and delivering network analytics applications to meet regulatory, compliance and operational requirements.

We will invest in technologies that enable better management through technological innovation, providing future generations with improved service levels at a reduced cost.

We will enable greater accessibility and optimisation of EV charging by:

• Supporting industry partners in assessing and facilitating the implementation of an increased number of public EV chargers and enabling an operating model that minimises negative impacts on the electricity network and customer costs.
• Facilitate and develop policies that promote the complex interactions of Vehicle-to-grid/home/business/load
• Enabling EV charging units to be mounted on Jemena assets where allowable under the National Electricity Rules and safety regulations.
• Trialling smart poles that are designed to deliver and combine intelligent technology such as lighting and telecommunication assets and EV charge points
• Collaborating with councils to optimise EV charging solutions where possible. Solutions could include EV car spaces and location selection
• Improving EV connection processes, including providing more information on localised network constraints (which can cause connection issues), the cost to connect (including network augmentation requirements) and timeframes to connect.
• Increasing and expanding analytics and data on EVs, including location, loads, profile and forecasts over time.
• Developing and communicating clear guidelines to EV charging customers in conjunction with industry partners.

• We will conduct qualitative research with customers (including the groups identified in our Customer Voice Groups) to further identify the experiences where greater empathy in service delivery is required.
• We will review our work practices to identify ways we can enhance empathy in service delivery and tailor customer service (including responding to First Nations customers) to meet customer needs, utilising additional data from customer research.

Building upon our existing work, we will enable energy storage by exploring:

• Researching and developing energy storage options and alternatives, including placing and sizing batteries in areas that need them most.
• Collaborating with the Victorian Government and peer Victorian electricity distribution network service providers to share learning and develop common standards
• Standardising battery connection arrangements using a ‘plug-and-play’ model to minimise costs and accelerate deployment
• Utilising mobile battery storage to react to major events and provide network support where needed on a short-term or temporary basis
• Advocating to regulators and governments to allow distribution network service providers to own and operate batteries
• Partnering with large-scale grid-connected battery providers to provide backup storage.

In alignment with our Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), we will:

• Conduct a review of the cultural learning needs within our organisation to ensure the cultural learning strategy scoped during Reflect is fit for purpose and up to date. Update the learning strategy as/if required.
• Conduct a review of HR policies and procedures to identify existing anti-discrimination provisions, as well as future needs.
• Research best practice and engage with the Indigenous Employee Network to explore the benefits of developing and implementing a standalone anti-discrimination policy for our organisation

As part of the cultural learning strategy, including how to educate senior leaders, managers, and team members on the effects of racism

In alignment with our Innovate RAP, we will:

• Work with local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to develop principles for communication in relation to employment and business opportunities, and Environmental, Social and Governance practices.
• Build an understanding of current Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staffing to inform future employment and professional development opportunities.
• Engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff to develop and implement an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander recruitment, retention and professional development strategy.
• Review channels and partners used to advertise job vacancies to effectively reach Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stakeholders
• Include in all job advertisements, ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are encouraged to apply.’
• Review HR and recruitment procedures and policies to remove barriers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation in our workplace.

In alignment with our Innovate RAP, we will:

• Cocreate and implement an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander procurement strategy
• Develop and communicate opportunities for procurement of goods and services from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses to staff.
• Review and update procurement practices to remove barriers to procuring goods and services from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses

We will partner with Indigenous artists to commission artwork for our electricity network, including assets located across the network, such as community batteries, along with embedding artwork in our publications and materials for our electricity network where it is meaningful and respectful to the community and Country.

We will review our Community Grants Application Process and criteria to explore how the process could be improved for First Nations community organisations.

To strengthen our relationships with First Nations customers and communities and in alignment with our Innovate RAP, we will:

• Consult local communities and/or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander team members to inform our cultural learning strategy, implementation approach and communications.
• Establish a First Nations Community Leaders Council for each state and territory we operate in and meet with each of them at least annually to build and/or maintain mutually beneficial partnerships and opportunities for First Nation peoples and communities.
• Develop and implement a communication approach and engagement strategy to support connection and collaboration with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, stakeholders and organisations.

To increase our information and data sharing we will:

• enable self-serve via an online portal and enabling customers to provide their contact details for outage notifications via the Jemena Customer Portal
• provide electronic notifications faster than currently, and utilise the contact details provided via the Jemena Customer Portal
• enhance our existing customer channels and touchpoints, by integrating our customer applications and back-end customer knowledge management and providing customers with one seamless customer experience
• explore opportunities to provide identification and notification of the momentary power dips where feasible to large customers
• explore the feasibility of obtaining real time power quality data and providing electronic notification either via the Customer Portal or emails.

We will create incentives for customers to engage in batteries by exploring:

• Streamlining current connections for customers with batteries to incentivise battery connections
• Enabling bidirectional charging solutions to enable vehicles to act as batteries on the electricity network
• Trialling a community battery tariff for residential customers
• Trialling a tariff that supports and incentivises customers with solar and batteries to consume more, store during excess generation periods and export during peak demand periods
• Supporting and collaborating with Virtual Power Plant (VPPs) operators.

We will use this expenditure to maximise green energy by:

• Collaborating with industry partners on VPPs opportunities.
• Developing and implementing policies, processes and practices that encourage and drive sustainable business, including:
  • streamlining the connections process for consumer energy resource connections such as rooftop solar, EV and batteries
  • Standardising connection of small-scale renewable generation to the electricity network
  • Investing in research and development to learn how renewable generation and storage connect and interact with the electricity network.
• Develop a campaign to deliver accessible information to customers via trusted sources and stakeholders such as retailers and local councils
• Developing an education campaign to increase customers' knowledge and understanding of installing renewables, including the benefits and potential risks, so they are well-informed and empowered.
• Developing an online renewables hub with key information for customers to encourage engagement and use of renewables.

We will implement digital technologies that enable devices across the electricity network to communicate and share data that might be useful for both customers and electricity network management.

This includes smart meters, sensors, automation, and other digital network technologies, as well as advanced metering infrastructure and smart grid technologies, to reduce other costs in the electricity supply chain, including network investments, to realise financial savings in the long term.

We will achieve this by:

• Implementing a Future Network Strategy that includes:
  • Analysis of near real-time AMI data, the metering and communications infrastructure we use to read meters remotely and obtain data for analysis. We use this data to help run the electricity network more efficiently and resolve problems more quickly.
  • Dynamic Network Configuration that performs hourly dynamic status changes of sectionalising and tie switches to reduce network line losses, minimise loss of load or increase hosting capacity for distributed energy resources.
  • Dynamic Voltage Management is an advanced operating technology that automatically optimises voltages on the electricity network depending on conditions throughout the day.
  • Flexible services, a range of services (for example, load switching at critical times) that we can procure from customers and their representatives as a means to avoid expensive electricity network upgrades. This allows us to run the network more efficiently.
  • Grid Stability market enablement, a suite of digital systems that allow us to procure and trade flexible services.

We have increased expenditure in the network to prioritise increasing the resilience of the network by:

• Replacing and upgrading assets that are more ‘fragile’ and pose a risk to the continued operation of the network. As our assets face an increase in extreme weather events and frequently face more stress, more fragile assets pose a greater risk to network resilience now more than ever.
• Using technologies such as Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), a mapping and information tool that overlays different flood and wind zones, to manage the network better and more quickly. LiDAR can be overlaid against different flood and wind zones across the network to manage the network better and more quickly, and the Digital Twin technology helps understand situations in real-time.
• Sharing data with stakeholders to support customers during extreme weather events (for example, mapping data on flood planes and wind flow)
• Develop a comprehensive resilience strategy.

We will deliver ongoing service excellence to customers by:

• Developing a Customer Service Incentive Scheme to hold Jemena accountable for achieving service excellence and high-quality customer service
• Benchmarking against peer businesses for transparency and objectivity, communicating and publishing the results for customers.

• We have a role to provide, construct and maintain emerging public lighting technology. However, our approach to public lighting is customer-driven, which means we work with local councils and VicRoads to ensure that we embrace technological developments that meet our customers’ needs.
• We are keen to explore the smart lighting opportunities (including trial funding) further with our customers through this consultation.

We will use expenditure to enable long-term sustainable operations of the network and its infrastructure by:

• Electrifying our operational fleet and installing EV charging stations at Jemena sites, including depots.
• Accelerating the replacement of SF6 gas with a more sustainable option (g3 or equivalent)
• Encouraging renewables (policies, tariff structures)
• Finalising the roll-out of energy-efficient public lighting, replacing mercury vapour and incandescent globes with LED
• Driving renewable generation enablement activities
• Trialling the deployment of solar and batteries to decarbonise operations (depots, offices, etc).
• Maturing sustainable materials sourcing practices.

We are using existing expenditure (passing on no additional costs to customers) to explain and communicate tariffs and tariff structures to customers.

We will implement and explain transparent tariff structures by:

• Developing dedicated and tailored communications on network tariffs and bill impacts and making them accessible to customers, including providing an easy-to-read set of information on the Jemena website.
• Removing network tariffs with components that can be confusing to customers (for example, the A10D – residential demand tariff), which has proven difficult for retailers to explain.
• Aligning existing network tariffs as much as possible within Jemena and to other Victorian electricity distribution network service provider so that customers can be confident that their tariff structure is the same whenever they move around Victoria or choose to change their tariff.

We will ensure cost-reflective and equitable tariffs by:

• Implementing a cost-reflective solar soak tariff, enabling customers connected to the network to benefit from rooftop solar generation, even if they don’t own solar panels themselves
• Implementing an optional (not mandatory) export tariff to encourage self-consumption of rooftop solar generation and promote battery uptake
• Plan and work towards shifting customers off single-rate tariffs to the new solar soak tariff.
• Continuing our advocacy work with the Victorian government and Australian Energy Regulator to highlight the need for cost-reflective tariffs and the benefits of our new solar soak time of use tariff.
• Collaborate with the Victorian Government and peer Victorian electricity distribution businesses to gain agreement and support to implement these initiatives.
• Engage with electricity retailers to co-design customer-facing tariffs to ensure the benefits in the network tariffs are passed through to customers.