Australia’s data centre boom is going to need an extraordinary amount of electricity. Without the right rules, households and small businesses could end up sharing the bill.

Governments are now moving towards requiring data centres to provide additional energy supply and to pay for the network upgrades they require, rather than passing those costs on to everyone else.
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Western Australia’s government-owned Synergy has an unusual position in the electricity market: it owns some of the state’s biggest batteries, as well as generators selling electricity into the same market.

New analysis has found its batteries sometimes charging at surprisingly high wholesale prices in the middle of the night, helping push those prices even higher. On the one hand, Synergy is paying more to charge its batteries. On the other hand, its generators could benefit from higher wholesale prices.

The prices discussed in this article are wholesale electricity prices. Individual price spikes don’t flow directly through to the regulated tariffs that most WA households and small businesses pay. But persistently higher wholesale costs can ultimately affect the cost of supplying electricity in WA.

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Only 24% of Australian battery owners have joined a Virtual Power Plant (VPP). That’s from the ACCC’s latest electricity market report, and the reaction has been fairly uniform: this is a problem, and the fix is to make VPPs more appealing. Better consumer protections. Simpler products. Minimum technical standards. Probably more VPP rebates.

 But there’s another way to read a number like that.

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From the start of this month, most energy retailers are required to offer plans offering three free hours of daytime electricity. We’ve put three Solar Sharer offers under the microscope to see the devil in the detail – just how much extra customers will be paying in daily supply charges and peak rates.

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With the recent rises in fixed daily charges, the retail price of electricity means a lot of people are going off.

I understand the anger – I’m paying it too – but I have to reiterate the answer isn’t going off grid.

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Up until last week, the angriest Australians I’d ever experienced were the parents at under-10s soccer. [Read more…]

Most energy retailers have released their mandatory “Solar Sharer” free daytime electricity plans to market, but those who failed to meet the July 1 deadline or hiked daily supply charges could face the wrath of regulators.

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The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has released its final Default Market Offer (DMO) determination for 2026–27, with most households across NSW, South East Queensland and South Australia set to see lower benchmark electricity prices from July. [Read more…]

The Australian Energy Regulator has completed its annual round of electricity network pricing approvals across most of the country, with one state defying the national trend for higher costs. [Read more…]

As clocks go back one hour on April 5 across much of Australia, most households will simply enjoy an extra hour of sleep. But for some electricity customers on time-of-use plans, daylight saving can quietly eat into their hard-earned money if their usage isn’t timed just right. [Read more…]