Supplying electricity to homes and businesses involves many stages. The costs at each stage are determined by either regulation or competition. Generators sell wholesale electricity into a competitive national market: prices reflect supply and demand.
The main cost is that of networks, or the ‘poles and wires’, which deliver electricity from power stations to homes. Network costs are set every five years by the national regulator, the Australian Energy Regulator.
We have been determining regulated retail electricity prices in regional Queensland since 2007.
From 1 July 2016, we no longer set electricity prices in south east Queensland (SEQ). Consumers in SEQ can now compare competing electricity offers at Energy Made Easy.