Scheme Participants must meet certain legal requirements under the Peak Demand Reduction Scheme (PDRS), as set out in the compliance timeline below.

a if required – note August is an indicative date for you to commence the audit process and relates to the earliest date that market demand data from AEMO could be provided. You may commission your audit earlier than August to suit your business requirements.
We have aligned the timeline for Scheme Participant reporting under the PDRS and Energy Savings Scheme (ESS). See our Scheme Participant compliance timeline page for more details.
Scheme Participant reporting processes will be online in early 2023. We are building the new functionality in TESSA and expect to update this page and our guidance material when the build is complete.
Additional information is on our TESSA for Scheme Participants webpage.
Notify IPART of non-market and exempt loads
By 31 May each year or a later date specified by the Scheme Regulator you must inform us if you have any:
- non-market acquisitions (liable acquisitions from a person other than the Australian Energy Market Operator), or
- exempt electricity loads.
You only need to tell us if you have them at this time. We will use this information to determine if you need to audit your individual liable demand before you submit it to us.
More information is available on the Liable acquisitions and exempt loads page.
Calculating your individual liable demand
Calculate your individual liable demand by adding together all liable acquisitions and subtracting any exemptions on the four peak days. Once you’ve completed the calculations, you may need to complete an audit of your individual liable demand. We will tell you if an audit is required.
If an audit report is required, this will need to be lodged at the same time as your individual liable demand. This means you will need to make sure you engage an auditor with enough time to meet the deadline. More information about audits is available on the Auditing Scheme Participants page.
We have aligned individual liable demand and ESS annual energy savings statement reporting dates to allow you to conduct combined audits under the 2 schemes if you wish. See our Scheme Participant compliance timeline page for more details.
Submitting your individual liable demand
By 15 October each year, you must report your individual liable demand to us (see the Liable acquisitions and exempt loads and Individual liable demand pages for more details). We will make a default assessment of your individual liable demand if you do not meet this deadline.
These requirements allow us to calculate and publish the scheme liable demand (by adding together scheme participants’ individual liable demand) by 15 December each year.
Lodging your annual statement
You must submit an annual statement to us by 15 February each year, detailing:
- your individual certificate target for the previous compliance period
- the amount of any shortfall penalty for the previous compliance period, including any shortfall penalty for a carried forward shortfall
- any other information we request to be included in the annual statement.
How you can meet your target
To meet your individual certificate target, you may submit an election with your annual statement to:
- surrender certificates, and/or
- carry forward a shortfall or part of a shortfall.
If you elect to surrender certificates you must provide details of the certificates you propose to surrender. Importantly, certificates must be registered as active in the certificate registry at the time they are surrendered – see the PRC status and PRC expiry pages for more information.
If you don’t meet your target by surrendering PRCs or carrying forward a shortfall, you will need to pay a shortfall penalty – see the Shortfalls and shortfall penalties page for more information.
We will publish further information on our website before you need to meet reporting requirements. This will include guidance on how to complete the annual statement or nil return through our new online system, TESSA.
Assessing compliance
Once we have assessed your annual statement, we will issue a Notice of Assessment of your compliance with your obligations along with an invoice if liability for a shortfall penalty exists. The shortfall penalty must be paid within 12 months after the end of the compliance period (that is, by 31 March in the following year) or a later date specified by the Scheme Regulator.