Later this week Enel Energy Australia will join the NEM as an electricity retailer. The retailer authorisation was recently approved by the AER and will take effect on the 8th of December.

This approval signals that the likes of Shell and Telstra, which also recently gained their authorisation, are likely to feel the pressure of this multinational in the electricity retail space.

Enel Australia’s parent company based in Italy is the world’s largest private renewable energy participant and is likely to target the sale of green power to businesses and in the future household customers as well.

Enel was bidding for the retailer Powershop which was owned by Meridian Energy. Powershop was successfully picked up by Shell earlier in the year.

Enel already has a presence in Australia with solar farms at Bungala in South Australia and Cohuna in Victoria with a total output of 300MW.

With the addition of the retail business, combined with the renewable generation and the demand response capabilities from within the EnelX business, they are now truly vertically integrated and across both traditional and emerging services in the NEM. Enel also has plans for 1500MW of new generation and battery storage in the next couple of years.

Article written by

Alex Driscoll

Senior Manager Markets, Trading & Advisory