Compliance Strategy

The Reliability Panel's Template for Compliance Programs replaces the 2019 Template for Generator Compliance Programs — the document most compliance programs in service today were built against. It was published on 30 July 2026 and applies from 27 August 2026. Compliance programs must be consistent with it by 27 February 2027. This is a rewrite, not a refresh. Here's what actually moved. What changed structurally 2019 2026 Title Template for Generator Compliance Programs Temp

Here's a scenario every asset manager will recognise. The OEM pushes an inverter firmware update — improved fault ride-through logic, better harmonic performance, routine stuff. It's applied across the site during a maintenance window. Operationally, nothing skips a beat. Under the Template for Compliance Programs, that update is a compliance event. In fact it's the Template's own worked example — Chapter 3 uses an inverter control system update to illustrate exactly this cat

Principle 2 of the Template for Compliance Programs contains a sentence we think will reshape how the NEM approaches compliance: continuous plant monitoring is the preferred approach, where practicable — and where it isn't implemented, a Registered Participant must document its reasons and put alternative regimes in place that still provide reasonable assurance. That's a monitor-or-explain regime. And it reflects where the power system has genuinely landed. What happened to t

If you read one chapter of the Template for Compliance Programs, make it Chapter 2. The compliance principles have always been the philosophical core of the Template — but they've now been rebuilt and given a much clearer job: every compliance program should be consistent with them, and any deviation from the Template must be justified against them. Here's the full set, in plain language: Balance risk against cost. Testing and monitoring regimes should weigh the cost of compl

The Reliability Panel has published what used to be called the Generator Compliance Template. It has a new name — the Template for Compliance Programs — and that rename is doing more work than you might think. For those newer to the framework: under NER rule 4.15(c), every Registered Participant who operates plant subject to a performance standard must institute and maintain a compliance program consistent with the Template. The Template was published on 30 July 2026 and appl

Under the National Electricity Rules, failing to maintain a compliance program consistent with the AEMC's Compliance Template isn't a paperwork problem — it's a Tier 1 civil penalty provision, the most serious category in the framework. For a corporation, that exposure runs up to $10 million. The fines the AER has levied over the last 5 years act as a reminder that the AER is prepared to use the full reach of that power when performance standards aren't met. Now the bar is mo

Detecting a potential non-compliance event is the easy part. What happens next — the investigation, the operator conversation, the engineering judgment, the evidence trail — is where most compliance programs quietly drift back into spreadsheets and email threads.

Your solar farm has been running smoothly for five years. High-speed meters are recording gigabytes of data every month. No one's looking at it. Then AEMO calls: "We've identified an oscillatory instability event at your connection point on 16 April 2026, at 0321 NEM time. We believe your plant is not damping the oscillations and could be non-compliant with NER Cl. S5.2.5.10. You have 5 business days to provide your assessment." The scramble begins. Someone needs to access th

Managing GPS compliance for one renewable asset is hard. Managing ten across solar, wind, BESS and hybrid is exponentially harder — and in-house tools rarely keep up as portfolios grow, change hands, and diversify. Each project carries different metering, SCADA, and registered GPS. COMET gives asset owners one dashboard, one system of record, and one answer: which plant needs attention today?

Where continuous monitoring is in place, the AEMC now supports extended intervals between active compliance tests.

A firmware update can fundamentally alter a battery's frequency response or a wind farm's voltage control - without any physical changes. Yet many Generator Compliance Plans (GCP) barely address software change management. Modern IBR plant is increasingly software-defined. What's impossible for synchronous plant - changing performance characteristics without hardware modifications - is routine for inverters. Software & firmware changes affecting GPS compliance should be verif

When a GPS breach becomes a reportable incident, the damage is already done—to your operations, your reputation, and potentially your bottom line. Traditional compliance approaches wait for problems to surface. Manual reviews happen weeks or months after events. By then, you're managing consequences, not preventing them. COMET transforms GPS compliance from reactive to proactive. Our platform continuously monitors your plant performance, identifying potential non-compliance b

Too many asset owners discover GPS non-compliance only when something goes badly wrong, or during AEMO audits. With AER enforcement as a 2024-25 priority and civil penalties reaching $10M, the regulator has been explicit: "reactive or ex-post assessments cannot be solely relied upon." Modern technologies now enable moving grid compliance from once every 24 months to once every 24 hours—at comparable or lower cost. The question isn't whether to implement robust compliance prog

After monitoring 3GW+ across Australia, we strongly believe that effective GPS compliance programs rest on four pillars: 1. Monitoring – Continuous automated performance tracking. Catches issues early. 2. Testing – Validates edge conditions. Essential, but complementary to monitoring. 3. Modelling – Periodic validation that models match reality. Critical for investigations. 4. Reporting – Proactive status updates, not reactive record-keeping. A testing-centric framework no lo

Every asset manager has asked their grid team this question. And the answer usually involves: - "Let me check..." - "We are very busy right now..." - "I'll need to pull the data..." - "Give me a few days..." Because traditional compliance m onitoring is manual, time-consuming, and always playing catch-up. COMET was built to change that conversation. Our platform gives you immediate answers. Not because we've created magic—but because we've automated what used to take days: 🔍

“We have a testing regimen in place in line with our GCP – why do we need to monitor?” Because the AER says you have to. Under NER Clause S 5.2.5.13 , generating systems must maintain automatic voltage and reactive power control capabilities. Field testing validates compliance at a point in time but, when we’re using technologies which can have their performance changed through the click of a button, what is the plant doing the rest of the time? We see this all the time. Over