History of PDRS rule changes

The Peak Demand Reduction Scheme (PDRS) Rule

The first PDRS Rule was published in September 2022 and introduced activities for:  

• air conditioners  
• heat pump water heaters
• refrigerated cabinets
• ventilation motors  
• refrigeration motors
• pool pumps
• spare fridges and freezers.

The first PDRS Rule was amended on 17 February 2023. This ensured small businesses are eligible for specific activities related to commercial air conditioning, commercial water heating, refrigerated cabinets and motors. These are defined as HVAC2, WH1, RF2 and SYS1 in the Rule.  

The second PDRS Rule was published on 24 May 2024. This contains changes to existing activities, including limiting the commercial water heater activity to larger units and revising baselines and calculations for the high-efficiency pool pumps activity (SYS2). It also removed two activities – the removal of old fridges and freezers activity (RF1) and installation of high-efficiency motors activity (SYS1).  

These changes will commence on 1 August 2024.  

An update to the second PDRS Rule was published on 6 September 2024. This contains changes to the equipment requirements for the new battery incentives.

These changes will commence on 13 September 2024.

The second PDRS Rule also introduced new incentives for households and small businesses to install and operate residential batteries.  

These changes will commence on 1 November 2024.

Previous Rule Changes

You can download discussion papers on the final PDRS rule changes, draft PDRS rule versions and public submissions using the links in the table below.

These documents are only a guide and are not intended for any official PDRS purposes.