Electricity Transmission Regulations 1996

A force majeure event in respect of a party to an access agreement or a person to which these regulations apply means any event outside the party’s control, including —

any act of God, lightning, earthquake, storm, fire, flood, subsidence, land slide, mud slide, wash‑out, explosion or natural disaster;

any insurrection, revolution or civil disorder, act of public enemies, malicious damage, sabotage, vandalism, war (whether declared or undeclared) or a military operation, blockade or riot;

any determination, award or order of any court or tribunal, or any regulatory authority or the award of any arbitrator;

any act or omission of government or any government or regulatory department, body, instrumentality, ministry, agency, fire brigade or any other authority other than the corporation or the user (including restraint, expropriation, prohibition, intervention, direction or embargo);

any inability or delay in obtaining any governmental, quasi‑governmental or regulatory approval, consent, permit, licence or authority;

any industrial disputes of any kind, strike, lock‑out, ban, limitation or other industrial disturbances;

any significant plant or equipment failure which could not have been avoided by the exercise of good electricity industry practice;

where the person is party to an access agreement, any act or omission of any person with facilities connected to the electricity transmission network which frustrates the party’s ability to perform its obligations under the access agreement;

any application of any law of the Commonwealth, any Commonwealth authority, the State, any State authority or any local government.

If a user, a corporation or a person who makes an access application (called the affected person) is unable wholly or in part to perform on time and as required any obligation under the access agreement or these regulations (other than an obligation to pay money) because of the occurrence of a force majeure event, then, subject to this regulation, that obligation (called the affected obligation) is suspended to the extent that and for so long as the affected person’s ability to perform the affected obligation is affected by that force majeure event.

Without limiting subregulation (2), a corporation’s obligation to transfer electricity to or from a connection by means of the electricity transmission network or provide an access service is suspended during any period that the transfer of electricity to or from that connection or the provision of the access service in respect of that connection is interrupted or curtailed under regulation 25 or regulation 29 to the extent of the interruption or curtailment.

Subject to subregulations (5), (6) and (7), if a force majeure event occurs, then the affected person must —

notify any person who in the affected person’s reasonable opinion is likely to be adversely affected by the suspension of the affected obligations; and

use reasonable endeavours (including incurring any reasonable expenditure of funds and rescheduling man power and resources) to mitigate the consequences and minimise any resulting delay in the performance of the affected obligation.

If an affected person fails to comply with subregulation (4)(b), then the only consequence of that failure is that the period of suspension of the affected obligation is reduced by the period of any delay in the performance of the affected obligation attributable to that failure.

The settlement of a labour dispute which constitutes a force majeure event is a matter which is within the absolute discretion of the affected person.

An affected person is not obliged to incur any expenditure in complying with subregulation (4)(b) if the force majeure event is constituted by a breach of, or failure to comply with, the access agreement by another party to the access agreement or these regulations by another person to which these regulations apply.