Ausgrid is an electricity distribution company which owns, maintains and operates the electrical networks supplying 1.8 million customers servicing more than 4 million people in Sydney, the Central Coast and of New South Wales, Australia.
Ownership
Ausgrid was wholly owned by the Government of New South Wales from 2011 to 2016. In 2016, the New South Wales Government offered the effective sale of a 50.4% stake in Ausgrid, through a 99-year lease.
Initial bidding was won by a consortium of State Grid Corporation of China and Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings. On 11 August 2016 the Federal Government intervened to block the proposal, citing national security concerns regarding foreign ownership of critical infrastructure.
In September 2016 the New South Wales Government instead accepted a bid from an Australian-based consortium of
AustralianSuper and
IFM Investors, for a sum of $16 billion.
History
Ausgrid has received numerous complaints and requests for better stakeholder management and consultation of the local community. Ausgrid was seen as forcing their network capacity increasing (and therefore profit increasing) projects onto local residential communities. Affected residents groups from the suburbs of Leichhardt,
Penshurst
and
East Lindfield protested against proposed electricity infrastructure
being installed in front of their residential homes without proper consultation or response to complaints by the community. The residents, after many urgent appeals to Ausgrid's former COO Trevor Armstrong and the former chairman Roger Massey-Green, had been given no other option to notify local MP's, the media, the Environmental Protection Authority and other authorities to get action against Ausgrid.
Accusations were also made of Ausgrid "gold plating" its business at the expense of consumers to increase the price in privatisation. Ausgrid undertook the rapid replacement of its fleet of vehicles.
See also
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