Real-time spot prices across all six Australian energy regions, updated every 5 minutes from AEMO dispatch data.
Wholesale electricity spot prices are the prices at which electricity is bought and sold in Australia's wholesale markets. AEMO sets a spot price for each region every dispatch interval, based on the bids generators submit and the demand that has to be met. These are the underlying prices that flow through into commercial energy contracts and the wholesale component of retail tariffs.
In the National Electricity Market (NEM), covering NSW, VIC, SA, QLD and TAS, AEMO publishes a spot price every 5 minutes, 288 dispatch intervals a day. In the Wholesale Electricity Market (WEM) in Western Australia, prices are set for 30-minute trading intervals. gridIQ tracks both markets so you can see all six regions on a single page.
Spot prices move with the balance of supply and demand in each region. When low-cost solar and wind output is high, prices fall and can turn negative. When renewable output drops and demand peaks, higher-cost thermal generators set the price and values can spike into the hundreds or thousands of dollars per megawatt-hour. Network constraints, interconnector limits, generator outages, weather and rebids all feed into the outcome, and a single NEM region can swing from below zero to the market price cap within one day.
The spot price is not the rate a household or small business pays. Retail tariffs bundle the wholesale cost with network charges, environmental scheme costs and a retail margin. Large commercial and industrial buyers, by contrast, are often exposed to the wholesale price directly or through contracts indexed to it. Energy managers watch the spot price to time discretionary load, PPA buyers and asset managers use it to track contract performance and basis risk, and generators and storage operators use it to plan dispatch. Track the emissions behind these prices with our real-time carbon intensity data, or see where prices are heading with AEMO pre-dispatch forecasts.