Commission announces conference on ODV Handbook

Media Release

Issued Friday 12 March 2004-04/098

Electricity Lines Businesses: Commission announces conference on ODV Handbook

The Commerce Commission will hold a three-day conference from 14-16 April 2004 on its draft optimised deprival valuation (ODV) Handbook. The Commission will use the final Handbook for valuing the system fixed assets of large electricity lines businesses. This work is part of the Commission’s development of a regulatory regime for lines businesses under Part 4A of the Commerce Act.

The Commission issued its draft ODV Handbook on 23 December 2003 and invited interested parties to make written submissions on the draft. The conference in April provides an opportunity for interested parties to present their submissions orally and for the Commission to ask questions based on those submissions.

The conference will be held in the ground floor conference room located in the NGC Building, 44-52 The Terrace, Wellington. A schedule of parties presenting at the conference and conference procedures will be publicly released in advance of the conference.

Background

On 11 September 2003, the Commission released an Issues Paper relating to the development of an ODV Handbook to be used by large electricity lines businesses for the purpose of valuing their system fixed assets under the regulatory regime pursuant to Part 4A of the Commerce Act. Written submissions on the Issues Paper, due on 14 November 2003, were received from 15 interested parties. The Commission engaged Parsons Brinckerhoff Associates Ltd. (PB Associates) as the principal consultant to assist with the development of an ODV Handbook.

The Commission’s draft ODV Handbook was released on 23 December 2003 together with an associated report from PB Associates. The Commission invited written submissions on the draft Handbook by 9 February 2004 and signalled that submissions could, where appropriate, address the contents of the associated report. The Commission received 16 submissions.

The Issues Paper, draft ODV Handbook and all related submissions are published on the Commission’s website (www.comcom.govt.nz).

The Commission proposes that its ODV Handbook will be used by lines businesses to establish system fixed asset valuations as at 1 April 2004 for distribution businesses and 1 July 2004 for Transpower. The Commission proposes to use such valuations in relation to the targeted control regime and information disclosure regime under subpart 1 and subpart 3 of Part 4A of the Commerce Act, respectively.

EMDS

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