On March 13, the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) laid out benchmark household power bill rises of between 5% and 8% for FY2025-26 in its draft Default Market Offer (DMO), and the Essential Services Commission released the Victorian Default Offer (VDO), which saw benchmark household bill rises of less than 1%. The increases in the DMO regions were largely driven by rises in the two largest components of an electricity bill: the wholesale costs which are the costs of generating electricity; and the network costs which are the costs of transporting electricity through the poles and wires.
The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) has examined longer-term trends in wholesale and network costs components, and explored whether there are any opportunities to bring these costs down to reduce cost of living pressures on households. The detailed report is available at: https://bit.ly/4ciXSNy.
