From Watts Up With That?
Essay by Eric Worrall
Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen blames householders for not shopping around for the cheapest deal.
New electricity prices ‘not welcome news’ for Australians in some states
The Australian Energy Regulator has revealed residential energy prices will increase in NSW, South Australia, and Queensland.
Published 26 May 2025 11:15am
By Cameron Carr
Source: SBS News…
The costs of electricity will be higher than last year, as the wholesale costs and the price of transporting electricity have risen, according to AER.
The AER said retail costs, such as the cost of billing customers, running call centres, acquiring new customers, managing defaults, and the rollout of smart meters, have added to the price hikes.
In NSW, residential customers without controlled load will be hit with price hikes of 8.5 per cent to 9.1 per cent, while customers with controlled load will face increases of 8.3 per cent to 9.7 per cent.
Residential customers without controlled load in south-east Queensland will face price increases of 3.7 per cent. Customers with controlled load will be hit with price increases of 0.5 per cent.
In South Australia, households without controlled loads will be affected by price increases of 3.2 per cent while those with controlled loads will witness a 2.3 per cent hike in prices.
…Read more:
Press release from the Australian Energy Regulator;
Australian Energy Regulator releases final Default Market Offer determination
26 May 2025
The Australian Energy Regulator has today released the final Default Market Offer Determination.
The independent AER sets the DMO as a benchmark for residential and small business electricity bills in NSW, southeast Queensland and South Australia, while the Victorian Default Offer is set by the Essential Services Commission. The final determination can be found here.
In encouraging news, the AER’S final prices in some DMO regions were not as high as anticipated from the draft prices released in March. However the Government is aware any bill increase will still put pressure on households and businesses.
That’s why in the 2025 Budget energy bill relief was extended for a further six months, while further energy market reform to deliver a fairer, better energy system for Australians is underway.
This is in stark contrast with how the former Coalition Government treated energy challenges – it is a matter of record that Angus Taylor changed the law to hide a 20% energy price hike before the 2022 election.
We went to the election with an honest account of the challenges, and a plan to tackle them which we continue to implement.
Importantly, while the DMO is the benchmark for standard offers from retailers, the AER has recorded market offers between 18% and 27% lower than the DMO.
Households should check that they’re on the cheapest energy plan available, with recent ACCC data showing some 80% of households could be paying less on a different deal. The Government’s energy.gov.au website and the AER’s Energy Made Easy website can help billpayers find the cheapest plans.
We began important reform work in the first term, but as we get back to work we know there is more to do when it comes to rebuilding Australia’s energy system into the fairer, modern grid we deserve.
The Government is delivering overdue reform to how the energy market operates, including making it easier for people to switch to cheaper deals and retailers under our One Click Switch reforms, ensuring people get the discounts they’re entitled to, and boosting consumer protections to ensure no one pays more than they should.
ATTRIBUTABLE TO MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY CHRIS BOWEN:
“With energy plans that are between 18% and 27% cheaper than the DMO it’s worth shopping around.
“It’s clear energy bills for Australians remain too high, and we’re providing help for people doing it tough as we deliver longer term reform.
“We also know 80% of households aren’t on the cheapest energy plan they could be which is why we’re making it easier for households to find and switch to better plans. Check the Energy Made Easy website or energy.gov.au for the cheapest plans in your area.”
Source:
Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has repeatedly demonstrated his shaky grasp of engineering principles. He even once hilariously claimed we can store electricity like water;
Chris Bowen isn’t having any of Uhlmann’s ‘wind doesn’t always blow’ rhetoric.
“the rain doesn’t always fall either, but we manage to store the water – we can store the renewable energy if we have the investment”#auspol pic.twitter.com/LjJkEr3zJy— Squizz (@SquizzSTK) June 16, 2022
Why do I claim renewables are to blame for this disaster? Because part of the eyewatering NSW price hike of 8.3 – 9.5% is likely because the NSW government has been forced to pay a billion dollars per year to one of their few remaining NSW coal plants, whose operators want to close the plant.
Who knows how many other subsidies are being quietly handed out to dispatchable generator owners whose decrepit plants are propping up what is left of Australia’s electricity grid. But these plants really are decrepit, and likely won’t last much longer no matter how much taxpayer money is on the table – as the Callide C coal plant explosion in 2021 demonstrated.
Coal Australia puts the cost of coal energy at $0.05 – $0.07 / kWh – significantly lower than current Australian grid prices. Building new coal plants would alleviate the energy cost crisis, by introducing genuine price competition rather than the current absurd situation of governments paying billions of taxpayer dollars to try to keep the last man standing.
But new coal plants are not going to happen in the foreseeable future, unless a bunch of coal plants all fail at the same time. Australian sovereign risk is off the scale. No private entity or individual in their right mind would attempt challenge Australia’s delusional political class, by trying to build the kind of new coal plant our nation desperately needs.
Share this:
Discover more from Climate- Science.press
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
You must be logged in to post a comment.