AEMO has published a comprehensive list of energy industry jargon here. Some common items are below.

AEMO – Australian Energy Market Operator is responsible for operating Australia’s largest gas and electricity markets and power systems.

AEMC – Australian Energy Market Commission: the expert energy policy adviser to Australian governments.

AER – Australian Energy Regulator: regulates electricity networks and covered gas pipelines, in all jurisdictions except Western Australia.

BTM or Behind the Meter - Usually this refers to projects that are co-located with electricity users. The advantage of having generation and electricity loads behind the same meter is that any generation used directly on site does not pay network charges (because it is not metered by the electricity retailer). Network charges can be 35%-50% of an electricity bill so this value is significant. Storage projects can capture extras value when they are co-located with generation or load. (see also FTM)

CER - Customer or Consumer Energy Resources. Referring to all the interesting things households and business are doing to participate more in the energy system - solar, batteries and controllable energy uses.

COAG – Council of Australian Governments: is the peak intergovernmental forum in Australia. The members of COAG are the Prime Minister, state and territory First Ministers and the President of the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA). The Prime Minister chairs COAG.

DER - Distributed Energy Resources. Often used as a quick reference to solar and batteries but it can be so much more. We are now calling these CER!!

DNSP - Distribution Network Service Provider. The electricity companies that own and maintain the poles and wires - ie the distribution network. There is one to four DNSPs in each state of Australia. There are also TNSPs who provide the higher voltage 'Transmission' systems which interconnect the states and provide the backbone of electricity infrastructure in each state.

FTM or Front of Meter - Usually this refers to projects that stand alone on the electricity system and are not co-located with electricity users or other sources of energy. These projects are normally competing with the wholesale electricity market regardless of how well they have been located so they may only collect half the value of a behind the meter (BTM) project. The user of local electricity from these projects still pays a full allocation of network charges.

kW, kWh, kVA, kVAr- kiloWatts, kiloWatt hours, kiloVoltAmps, kilo reactive power. KiloWatts are a measured of instantaneous power. A kiloWatt sustained for an hour requires a kiloWatt hour which is a measure of energy. KiloVoltAmps measures real power and reactive power together. If you multiply voltage by current you get VoltAmps. Real power (kW) = kVA x power factor where power factor is the cosine of the angular phase difference between the voltage and the current.

LCOE - Levelised cost of energy is a method of comparing energy costs across different technologies. It takes the lifetime costs of a technology and the lifetime energy production and produces a metric for comparison, usually in $/MWh. (this is comparable with the price you pay for electricity. For conversion c/kWh x 10 = $/MWh)

MW, MWh, MVA, MVAr - MegaWatts, MegaWatt hours, MegaVoltAmps, Mega reactive power. Anything with a M for Mega is 1000 times k for kilo. (See definitions of kW, kWh, kVA, kVAr above). G= Giga is 1000 times M. You will occasionally come across TWh (TeraWatt hours) each of which is 1,000 GWh. And PJ (Petajoules) but only when talking about national energy quantities.

NEM – National Energy Market: It interconnects five regional market jurisdictions – Queensland, New South Wales (including the Australian Capital Territory), Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania

NMI – National Meter Identifier: is a unique 10 or 11-digit number used to identify every electricity network connection point in Australia.

RET – Renewable Energy Target: is an Australian Government scheme designed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in the electricity sector and encourage the additional generation of electricity from sustainable and renewable sources.

WEM – Wholesale Energy Market: the electricity market of Western Australia of which there are more than one million customers.

VPP – Virtual Power Plant: is a pooled set of decentralised units in a power network. They are operated by a common, centralised IT control system.