Australian Energy Prices Keep on Climbing
Energy Cost
Electricity wholesale prices spiked again after the surprise election win for the incumbent Coalition government in connection with announcements by the Morrison administration to try and cut wholesale electricity prices down. The government had announced it would envision a cap at AUS$70 per megawatt hour, which in turn caused averages prices to increase to AUS$90/megawatt hour because of the ensuing uncertainty in the sector, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
The government itself has said that it has limited power in dictating energy prices on the free market. High prices in Australia came about because of a combination of different factors – from infrastructure updates being passed on to the consumer, the longtime lack of a default price (a no-strings attached base price for electricity that companies are then supposed to undercut with different offers) to confusing pricing strategies which led to consumers who didn’t switch around different deals frequently ending up with much higher bills over time. The default price, at least, will be introduced on July 1, following a decision by the Australian Energy regulator.

Description
This chart shows the price increase of household electricity and household gas on the Australian consumer price index from 1990 until 2019.