This page provides an accessible version of the guide to our Jemena Gas Networks 2025 Plan. If you would like to also view it as an interactive PDF, click here.

To view the full 150+ page document, click here.

The attachments that accompany the 2025 Plan can be found here.

Purpose

This page summarises the Plan for Jemena Gas Networks for the 2025 - 30 period. It outlines the proposed pricing and services initiatives from our customers that have helped shaped the 2025 Plan.

Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands upon which we operate and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters, and culture.

We pay our respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging.

Strategic context and background to our 2025 Plan

The energy system is undergoing a once-in-a-generation transformation. We are operating in a period of significant uncertainty surrounding the future role of gas networks in the Australian energy landscape. This presents a complex challenge for us and our customers in determining how best to respond to the uncertainty created by the energy transformation in the long-term interests of consumers.

Whilst we believe that our network can play a vital role in supporting the transition to netzero, there is still much uncertainty about both the exact pathway and pace of the energy transition.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) forecasts that residential and small commercial consumption will gradually decline in the short term, with electrification to reduce natural gas usage more significantly in the medium to longer term as the economy transitions to meet net zero emissions by 2050. We are also forecasting that consumption by our customers will reduce over the 2025-30 period, and that fewer customers will connect to our network than in the past.

This uncertainty adds complexity to our planning processes for our future operations but the need to act now is imperative – the earlier we start to address the challenges presented because of the rapid energy transition, the smoother the pathway to net-zero will be. Our 2025 Plan will ensure that we can continue to provide our customers with a safe and reliable service over our 2025 Plan period, and puts in place a number of initiatives aimed at supporting a fair and equitable energy transition for customers over the long term. Our plan is based on the best available information and provides flexibility to adjust these initiatives in the future as new information becomes available.

Regardless of how we respond to the energy transition, we must also continue to meet our regulatory obligations in the areas of safety, reliability, security, and the environment, which are key drivers of our expenditure forecasts for the 2025 – 30 period.

Customer and stakeholder feedback on our Draft 2025 Plan has informed our 2025 Plan that has now been submitted to the Australian Energy Regulator.

Jemena Gas Networks map

Like many Australians, you might rely on gas for hot water, cooking and heating.

Jemena Gas Networks is a gas distribution company connecting 1.5 million customers with gas across Greater Sydney and New South Wales.

We keep gas flowing safely and reliably through the network. We also read your meter and provide this information to your gas retailer for billing purposes.

Overview of the 2025 Plan

Since October 2022 we have been engaging with our customers and key stakeholders to understand their expectations and views on the services we provide and how we should best plan for, and support, the energy transition.

We’ve listened to our customers and stakeholders and facilitated ‘closing the loop’ sessions with them to test whether our Draft 2025 Plan, published February 5th, 2024, aligns with their values and expectations with their feedback being woven into our 2025 Plan.

Our 2025 Plan summarises what we have learned and explains how these views have shaped our initiatives for our gas network over the period, 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2030.

The priorities of our customers can be summarised by their key values: affordability, reliability and safety, fairness, access to the gas network (choice) and contribution to a sustainable environment.

Our customers provided their preferences on five key areas including; moving towards renewable gas, speeding up recovery, how we manage our assets, a new approach to connections, supporting vulnerable customers, digital metering and permanent disconnections.

Shaped by customers, our 2025 Plan includes the following initiatives for us to address over the next five years:

1. Invest in renewable gas connections
2. Speed up the recovery of $300m in assets
3. Take a targeted approach to gas main replacement
4. Invest in new technology to better detect gas leaks
5. Increase the user pays portion of new connections
6. Enhance our support for customers experiencing vulnerability
7. Replace 8,000 ageing, defective and hard-to-reach meters with new digital meters
8. Retain a user pays approach to permanent disconnections
9. Reduce the number of tariff blocks and split tariffs to reflect small and large customers replacing coastal versus rural
10. Move ahead with a hybrid form of price control whereby we share the demand risk impacting our revenue with our customers for demand variations above or below 5%

Our 2025 Plan balances the needs of our customers and communities today with those of future generations, mainly through upfront actions and investment that is aimed at supporting a fair and equitable energy transition for customers over the long term. The Australian Energy Regulator will now review and assess our plan..

What our 2025 Plan means for our customers

What we've learned from you

We have been engaging with customers and stakeholders since mid-2022. We have engaged with over 7,800 customers and stakeholders in total. This has included key stakeholders such as retailers, large gas customers and small businesses. We’ve also engaged with our residential customers at forums and have met with over 40 participants eight times including a recall session in March 2024.

Our engagement with customers observes the benchmark for the industry, the Better Resets Handbook, and the International Association for Public Participation Core Values Framework.

It is important that all voices are heard, and our key voices engagement has included meeting with young people and culturally and linguistically diverse communities to hear their views.

From our conversations to date:

• Our Residential customers told us they would like to see renewable gas provided reliably and safely, and renewable gas education and communications. They also said affordability and looking after vulnerable customers is important over the next five years. They believe that Jemena should incorporate energy options for young people as well as those that are culturally and linguistically diverse, with decisions made with all Australians in mind. These decisions need to be measurable, tangible and proactive.
• Large customers have an interest in using renewable gas to meet net zero goals, however, they are also concerned about rising prices and affordability.
• Small businesses are most concerned about affordability and pricing, and what the energy transition may look like for their business, as this may impact their investment decisions in things like appliances.
• Retailers told us that choice was important when it came to energy. They also agreed renewable gas should be considered and were in support of additional support for customers experiencing vulnerability.
• We also spoke to our Advisory Board. Its feedback emphasised the principles of ’do no harm’ when considering impacts on customers. It also highlighted that the energy transition will require extensive investment, communication and consultation, and that looking after the most vulnerable customers in this is vitally important.
• We also held online customer workshops to delve into the complex topic of tariff structures and gather views on how we should price our services.

Customer values, recommendations and 2025 Plan initiatives

Residential customers identified five values as being important to them. These key values sit at the core of the customer recommendations to us and have helped guide and shape our initiatives for the 2025 Plan.

The revenue we require to deliver our Plan

The revenue to deliver the 2025 Plan is $501M greater than the 2020-2025 period. The increase in revenue is driven by the 2025 Plan initiatives and increased financing costs due to changes in market conditions. It is also a result of a downward adjustment to our 2020-25 revenue of about $204M to return revenue over-recovered from the 2015-20 period.

In developing our 2025 Plan, we have been mindful of the price impacts on customers both now and into the future. While some of 2025 Plan initiatives place an upward pressure on customers’ network bills in the next five-year period, they will help provide greater stability for prices over the long term, and support the efficient future utilisation of our gas network.

Recognising affordability and cost of living pressures impacting customers today, we have also sought to carefully balance the need to take action now against the short-term price impacts of our plans.

As we learn more about the exact pathway and pace to net zero, we will revisit these initiatives and adjust our strategies accordingly in future planning periods to ensure that we continue to meet the long term interests’ of our customers, and support the energy transition.

How to navigate the Plan

The documentation in our 2025 Plan is long and detailed.

This guide will assist you in finding your way to the areas and topics that are most important to you.

iv	Summary
Ch. 1	Background: Setting the scene
Ch. 2	How our customers have shaped our plans
Ch. 3	What our customers have told us
Ch. 4	Responding to the energy transition
Ch. 5	Our planned capital investments
Ch. 6	Our operating expenditure requirements
Ch. 7	The revenue we require to deliver on our 2025 Plan
Ch. 8	Forecasting new connections and gas consumption
Ch. 9	How customer feedback has informed our services
Ch. 10	Pricing for current and future generations

Where to find our 2025 Plan

Our 2025 Plan is available here. The full Plan, including all attachments, will be available on the AER website here.