Energy prices
Kelvin Say (2026) - "Energy prices - Australia". Published online at OpenEnergyTracker.org. Retrieved from: 'https://openenergytracker.org/en/docs/australia/prices/' [Online Resource]
Household electricity prices
Household electricity is typically sold through competitive retail markets. Retailers in turn pay for electricity generation in the wholesale electricity market, utilisation of the transmission and distribution network, and environmental policies. As a result, retailer revenue can be estimated as the difference (i.e. residual) between household electricity bills and the costs of supplying this energy.
These retail electricity prices are the weighted average across each state and territory, and are prepared by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC). The data is monitored over the Australian financial year (e.g. 2024-25), which begins 1 July and ends 30 June of the following year.
Costs associated with network utilisation is generally the largest contributor (45%) to retail electricity prices. Wholesale prices is the second largest contributer (35-40%) and reflects prices paid to utility-scale generators in the electricity market. Environmental policies remains a relatively small component of retail electricity prices and consist of payments for large-scale renewable energy target (LRET) and small-scale renewable energy scheme (SRES) certificates, jurisdictional and energy efficiency schemes. Retailers retain a procurement margin (10-17%) to manage the pricing risks from wholesale markets, and to cover the costs of network utilisation and environmental policies, on behalf of consumers.
Household electricity prices in the following figure are current prices and do not consider the effect of consumer price inflation (CPI). Real prices, which does consider inflation, can be toggled at the top of the chart. All prices are presented as cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in Australian dollars (AUD).
Under real prices, that take into consideration the consumer price index, overall electricity prices in Australia has been relatively steady, even after the global energy supply shocks in 2021-2022. Note: these supply shocks led to a re-evaluation of the methods used in the price trend reports from 2024 and onwards.