Ten years ago, if a heatwave as intense as last week’s record-breaker had hit the east coast, Australia’s power supply may well have buckled. But this time, the system largely operated as we needed, despite some outages.
On Australia’s main grid last quarter, renewables and energy storage contributed more than 50% of supplied electricity for the first time, while wholesale power prices were more than 40% lower than a year earlier.
Australia’s long, complicated and difficult energy transition is finally working. As our recent research suggests, if these trends continue – and nothing new goes wrong – we should begin to see lower retail electricity bills by mid-2026. As more coal plants close and new transmission and storage infrastructure is delivered, electricity prices could rise again. But overall, shifting demand from gas and coal for power and petrol for cars is likely to deliver significantly lower energy bills for households.
It’s not yet job do
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