Energy infrastructure safety case guidelines

Overview

Energy infrastructure companies have general duties under Victoria’s energy safety laws to minimise the hazards and risks arising from their electricity and gas supply networks, gas facilities and pipelines. They must show how they will meet these duties by submitting safety cases to Energy Safe Victoria.

This includes:

• Electricity safety management schemes (ESMS) under the Electricity Safety Act 1998 (Vic)
• Gas safety cases (GSC) under the Gas Safety Act 1997 (Vic)
• Safety management plans (SMP) under the Pipelines Act 2005 (Vic).

Legislative amendments in 2024 changed the process for revising and submitting safety cases. Major electricity companies and gas companies must now submit a revised ESMS, Bushfire Mitigation Plan (BMP), or GSC to Energy Safe every 5 years, regardless of when the last revision was accepted. They must also submit all proposed changes to an accepted ESMS, BMP, or GSC, even if the changes are not significant.

To support energy companies in preparing safety cases and understanding these changes, we have introduced new Energy infrastructure safety case guidelines. These replace the previous Energy infrastructure safety management policy and outline Energy Safe’s current expectations for safety case content, format, and assessment.

In addition to these Guidelines, we will update and create more detailed, sector-specific safety case guidelines as needed over time.

Read the final Energy infrastructure safety case guidelines: