Local electricity retailer Perth Energy is planning a leadership change, with chief development officer Giles Redmile to take over as chief executive in mid-February as current boss Andrew Rowe moves back to the engineering industry.
Both Mr Rowe and Mr Redmile previously worked at Calibre Engineering, with the latter serving as general manager, finance, and chief financial officer.
Prior to that, Mr Redmile worked in a similar role in Wesfarmers' chemicals division.
Mr Redmile told Business News Perth Energy planned to continue the business’s recent expansion into gas and solar provision, while also lobbying for reform of electricity market contestability.
The move into solar had taken place in 2016, he said, and he had been actively involved in that process as chief development officer.
Mr Redmile said he believed the government was sending the right signals on increased retail contestability.
Under the existing rules, companies can compete to sell gas to any customer, but power providers are limited to those who use more than 50 megawatt hours a year, which are mostly businesses.
Mr Redmile said lowering that 50MWh threshold would be a big positive for businesses, rather than necessarily abolishing the threshold entirely immediately.
“Just lowering the contestability threshold is something that's potentially easier to do ” he said.
“Whether that’s to some sort of MWh target or to open it up to businesses in general, we’d be supportive of that.”
Mr Redmile said the focus would be to continue to work with the government on the issue, and with the Independent Power Association lobby group.
In the interim, there wouldn't be a need for the business to expand on its existing 120MW dual-fuel power station in Kwinana, he said, because without a new market to grow into, there wouldn't be a place to sell the power.
The company’s existing share of the contestable market was about 15 per cent, he said.
