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.The national picture is fairly clear: most regions across the National Electricity Market are facing higher network costs in 2026–27, although the size of the increases varies significantly depending on where you live. Victoria’s network results were more mixed than most other jurisdictions, highlighting how differently electricity pricing can move between states and distributors.
These network charges don’t determine your final power bill on their own, but they are a major component of the electricity prices retailers eventually pass on to households. Network charges cover the cost of building, maintaining and operating the poles-and-wires infrastructure that delivers electricity to homes and businesses.
Which Networks Are Seeing The Biggest Changes?
The AER’s pricing data shows a broad upward trend across NSW and Queensland in particular, with several networks recording sizeable increases in the network portion of household electricity bills.
Among the largest increases:
Endeavour Energy (NSW): up around 11%
Energex (QLD): up around 12%
SA Power Networks: up around 10%
Ausgrid (NSW): up around 10%
More moderate increases include:
Essential Energy (NSW): up around 6%
TasNetworks: up around 5%
United Energy (VIC): smaller increases
Victoria is the main outlier nationally, with two distributors recording decreases:
AusNet Services: down around 9%
Jemena: slight decrease
These figures reflect estimated changes in the network portion of household electricity bills, not total retail bill increases.
Not all networks appear in the list above because some operate under government-regulated retail pricing (such as Ergon Energy and Power and Water Corporation) or have tariff structures that don’t produce a comparable residential percentage in the AER’s model.
Victorians Secure Lower Electricity Bills
After the AER’s decision, Victoria’s Essential Services Commission announced it would cut the cap on standard electricity offers, with bills set to drop by around 5%, or $84, for the average household on the Victorian Default Offer.
The savings are even larger for small businesses, which will save around 6% on average, or $241.
What About WA?
WA is not part of the AER’s annual network pricing process because electricity pricing there is handled separately through the WA State Budget.
For 2026–27, the WA Government confirmed a 2.75% increase to the fixed residential electricity charge for households on Synergy’s A1 home plan. That’s a separate pricing decision to the network cost changes being approved by the AER across the eastern states and territories.
Why Are Network Costs Rising?
The drivers vary slightly between states, but the broader pattern is consistent.
The AER says several themes appear repeatedly across the country, including:
- higher transmission costs
- inflation
- energy transition investment
- bushfire mitigation spending
- recovery of previously under-recovered revenue
Networks are also investing heavily in upgrading old infrastructure, improving bushfire resilience and adapting local grids to handle growing levels of rooftop solar, batteries and electric vehicles.
In NSW, some increases are linked to major energy transition and transmission projects, while South Australia’s figures also include costs associated with maintaining electricity system reliability.
The AER’s figures only cover the network portion of electricity bills, so exactly how these changes flow through to final retail prices will vary depending on retailers and tariff structures.
The National Default Offer will be released by the Australian Energy Regulator on Tuesday. A draft determination in March indicated that the default offer in NSW, SA and South East Queensland could fall due to lower wholesale, environmental and retail operating costs.
Update 26/05/26: The National Default Offer has now been released, wuth most households across NSW, South East Queensland and South Australia set to see lower benchmark electricity prices from July.
What Does This Mean For Solar Households?
Rising network costs still matter for homes with rooftop solar because network charges remain embedded within retail electricity prices, even when households significantly reduce their grid consumption.
Solar and batteries remain among the most effective ways to reduce electricity bills — particularly as higher retail electricity prices improve the value of avoided grid usage.
With network charges increasing across much of Australia, the SolarQuotes Solar Calculator helps you estimate how much solar or a battery could offset future bill rises, while our Electricity Plan Comparison Tool can help determine whether you’re on the best energy plan for your needs.
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Which means that the switch to off-grid is again a bit more attractive. Keep on like that and at some stage we have a larger exodus of network connected households.
That may be a positive though as those exiting the grid will take their solar with them.
I’m one of those who periodically considers the maths, but with high interest rates, the high cost of batteries, low grid usage, and ultimately relatively low power costs, on-grid battery can’t be justified, and while off-grid may be slightly better, that still doesn’t work either.
I am aware there’s a number of folk in my broader area who are off-grid, but I don’t know the numbers – it still seems like it’s fairly uncommon, but probably more common than most areas.
I guess this will give the non renewables crowd ammunition to insist fossil fuels provide the cheapest power?
The electricity itself has always been cheap. The cost of the rest of the grid will probably always be the expensive part.
Our bill in deregulated Alberta, Canada is always, mostly for the connection to the grid, and distant generation. 15 years ago I switched most of our lights frim incandescent to LED back when a single bulb was on sale for $25 from $45, and the next monthly bill went from $155 to $145.
Looking closer at the next bill, the electricity portion was $26.50, the daily fixed charges were $60, and with the variable ‘wire charcges’ for transmission, distribution, and adding on the local fees to to the town, and a sales tax, the total was $146.
We’ll never be off grid on solar alone, as we always use about 1,000 KWh a month, and the total rooftop solar output for the entire month of December was as little as 88 KW-h, with a 10 day stretch of zero generation due to snow cover.
Your right about buying shares AGL a provider is paying a 5.8% dividend !!
So back in March the news was telling us AER were recommending residential prices drop by up to 10.1%, now SQ is reporting prices are rising by up to ~12%. That seems curious!
Personally I have no problem if power costs rise IF my FiT also rises, but there’s no mention of this in the piece.
Factor in the last lot of FiT and charge changes saw my cost-benefit result plummet by something like $1,000/year, I’m not particularly impressed at present.
The maths for on-grid battery still doesn’t work – the cost of buying power is less than the depreciation on a battery and offset by comparably generous bank interest.
As for off-grid, the maths for that doesn’t work either, yet, but perhaps the new charges will change that?
This is about network costs which make up just one part of power bills, the AER’s March announcement was about draft default offer – the finalised Default Market Offer will be revealed tomorrow.
The maths for off-grid improve dramatically if you include the ‘up yours’ factor … the ability to tell assorted bloodsuckers to go do something physically impossible.. Personally I find independence EXTREMELY appealing.
‘Inflation’ is an important one. It is my understanding that under ‘Regulation’ participants are guaranteed income (or profit?) above inflation.
I also find it amusing that since the DMO (Thanks Angus) prices seem to be heading ever upwards. A correlation for sure. I wonder if there is causality..
Maybe Labor should do a meme.
The bill inflation is interesting. Rises of up to as much as ~12%, as compared to recent income increases of 2% for pensioners, ~3.5% for private sector employees, and 4% for public sector employees. That’s quite a significant gap!
Yes Victoria appears to be bucking the trend, but is it really? The state has an election in November, and Labor’s primary polling is abysmal. According to one April Sky News poll 26% of primary preferences flow to One Nation, 25% to Labor, and 21% to the Coalition – yes that leaves 28% unaccounted for, and a fair few Liberal voters may preference Labor over ON, but the fact Jacinta is out door knocking suggests the party is terrified and desperate to retain control. To be fair the piece I read wasn’t clear if that was a federal or state result.
Either way, a (state) government mandated price cut to power bills would be something said government could promote as a cost of living achievement, and thus a reason to re-elect them.
Reasonable skepticism?
Meanwhile in Queensland, the whole State (except for some SE.Qld. areas) are serviced by Ergon Energy. Power will go down about 10%, a small increase in the service fee and a big drop in the feedin tariff 8.660 cents per kWh to 6.153 cents per kWh.
This has prompted me to taking closing the account for our rental unit (at least over winter) It has only 6.6kW system and a 12kWh battery so it will go offgrid and I use the excess power for our EV. Otherwise I’ll be paying Ergon for feedin which will be about $200/year
Tom,
Given ample panels & battery, the off-grid thing can work quite well.
The day before yesterday, in pre-winter overcast, 37.6 kWh of solar plus an 8.2 kWh hit to the house battery part-charged three BEVs, and ran all household loads here.
Today, 36.3 kWh maxed out the BEV still here, and the HWS, and ran an aircon all day, finishing with the house battery on 100% – all in a mix of overcast, clouds, and a good chunk of sun.
Tomorrow I’ll charge the electric excavator while I’m out on the weekly 65 km shopping trip. (After putting in some strainer posts today, to finish off a 550m stretch of fence.)
Overdimension a little bit for the darkest times, then most of the time the challenge is to find uses for it all. (Economics will vary, though. Here, $74k was cheaper than extending the grid.)
Good thinking 99, I absolutely love to see potential victims finding ways / strategies to defeat the bloodsuckers..Those who seriously oppose their shenanigans will always find remedies.
Here in WA, we went from 47.0c to 07.0c/ kwh to now only 02.0c / kwh but if your solar array is larger than 6.6 kw you get a zero FIT.
What else could be expected, after all consumers are nothing more than milch cows for the totally unaccountable electricity racket to exploit.. On a slightly different but related angle, my wife and I have recently returned from a trip to China where we discovered the retail cost of electricity is 2c per kwh (yes … 2c) Why … well for a start, China power generates, distributes and retails ALL electricity at cost, there are none of the plethora of bloodsucking parasites we are inflicted with in Australia, each with their grubby snouts in the feeding trough..Furthermore the Chinese government considers electricity an essential service rather than a commodity available for profiteering bloodsuckers to gouge customers.
Doug, I’m not sure where you get that 2c/kWh from but even if true, remember that the minimum wage in China is around USD$3,000/year whereas for Australia it’s around USD$35,000. If Australia’s base wage is 12x China’s then 2c/kWh is closer to 24c/kWh – still only two-thirds to half what Australia charges, but Australian power is largely privatised.
Alternatively the average Chinese salary is less than USD$19K/year, while the average Australian salary is over USD$76,000. At a difference of 4:1 you’d be looking at 8c/kWh.
A look online suggests that China’s residential power prices are USD$0.078 which would be more AUD$0.11 or even AUD$0.12 which is quite a difference.
On a side note while I almost never eat McDonalds here I still have fond memories of paying ~$3 for Big Mac meals overseas which here in Australia cost something like $12. Direct comparisons of product prices can be misleading since different countries have such different costs e.g. minimum wage of USD$18 v $USD$6.
My experience in China was that both media and online information was wildly inaccirate and I suspect intentionally In many ways China is way ahead of Australia and the perception that the government controls everything is untrue … the average person in China has freedoms we can only dream about, like zillions of official muppets constantly seeking revenue as is the case in Queensland ..I’d never live there as I’m not a city type but its a very different place to what the mainstream media tells us. My associates there certainly earn a lot more than the minimum wage although I’m aware of to whom that does apply.
There is a you tube video where a guy claims that the home supply charges will rise to $ 5 a day and this will undermine the installation of solar and batteries (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxfJkx8BGhg). I still feel that having solar at home minimize the ongoing costs but question now comes do we raise against our shadows? The Energy companies will find a sneaky way to get extra money from the end users…
Yes I watched that segment, virtually undermines the gains in battery installations. I have been on rooftop solar for 10 years now and have watched the savings slowly ebb away. Next will be a “Provider” charge, like water & sewage, if the electricity goes past your property, Whether you’re connected, or not, you will get a bill.
There are proven ways to beat that crap, and if perchance the parasites win a battle I can positively guarantee they will not win the war.
If too many go off grid they’ll start charging you for grid power whether you use it or not because its available !!
Also it you go off grid and your inverter breaks down your stuck and perhaps for some time as installation companies are booked out installing batteries !!
Peter,
The economics may vary, but here I have two PV inverters and two battery inverters for off-grid fault tolerance. There was no way I was going to sit in the dark while waiting for equipment replacement.
Resilient off-grid is a different animal.
Anyone connected to the grid pays a Daily Supply Charge, irrespective of whether drawing any electrons or not from the grid. So the ‘availability’ billing is already with us.
I am sure everyone in this Forum realize this. The discussion is about what is the reasonable amount the Electricity Company should charge. I understand that they spent a lot of money on grid infrastructure with Government subsidy. Why then the daily supply charge keeps going up and up?
Well said !! The more money they make it’s more for shareholders, they don’t spend a huge percentage on poles and wires is my opinion !!
The logical thing to do then, if the returns to shareholders are that good, is to open a trading account and every month, buy $200 or $300 in their stock, whatever the electric bill is, until the monthly dividends are paying your electric bill.
Powering your house from solar on Australia is at least possible. Here in Canada it’s only possible about 6 to 8 months a year. We have brutal winters and even the herbivores will kill you, you have brutal summers and smaller, venemous wildlife. And nowhere is there a free lunch.
From what I can see Energex at 12% is the highest.
It very hard to objectively see how anyone could justify increased costs in one year to this level. Being a government organisation there should be closure scrutany. More information would be better.
I see in the list of factors is investment in the energy transition. It would be interesting to see how that is factored. Revenue is not nromally used for capital development.
The most frustating from a consumer perspective is that there are wide variations for retailer to charges what they like. I would like to see the service charge being split so you can see the network cost (Energex) which should be the same for all retailers. The retailer should be made to add its costs to the rates so that you dont have to calculate. What the retailers are doing is varying the service charge with different plans. The service charge for my house should be fixed. I have a smart meter, where is the cost saving?
There’s a statement of reasons here: https://www.aer.gov.au/industry/networks/pricing-proposals/energex-2026-27-pricing-proposal — it’s interesting.
It’s mainly distribution network increases. But also includes some adjustments from underestimates from last year. In 2025-26 the opposite happened — there were some reductions; my network charges dropped last year. 12% is just the median — some will be a bit lower, some a lot higher.
Figure 5 is a big clue. They are forecasting NO increase in volumes! All those new estates in SEQ – but no new volumetric revenue. That’s PV and batteries eating their lunch and dinner respectively. Consequently, prices have to go up. The 2026-27 increases are mainly in the fixed daily charges and the network shoulder charge. Peak and offpeak barely move.
This is the reality that’s driving AER’s desire to hike the daily charges.
Some more here from Energex: https://www.energex.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/1985969/Energex-2026-27-Pricing-Proposal-Overview.pdf
Section 3.1.1 gives their reasons including flood and cyclone events. We should expect expect costs in excess of CPI from natural disasters.
This is a very misleading article. The network costs are only a portion of the total bill costs, and while they are rising, the increases are offset by lower wholesale costs (more renewables which are cheaper than coal) so the total bill for most consumers should actually decrease with the new DMO.
Our article, published yesterday, did specify that, and was updated with today’s DMO news, which we did a full story about as well.