The Australian energy regulator has released the default market offer (DMO) for 2025-26 which predicts an increase of up to 10 per cent for electricity bills in the coming months. The DMO is the maximum price that electricity retailers can charge customers on standing offer plans for households and small businesses in NSW, Southeast QLD, and SA.
Source: Energy Made Easy
Director of the UOW Energy Futures Network Ty Christopher said the DMO increases are a cause for great concern for all energy consumers and must be addressed.
“The underlying reason for the increase is predatory market behaviour and price gouging by the large electricity generators and in particular, the companies that are called gentailers [generators and retailers],” Mr Christopher said.
“These gentailers are particularly predatory in that, on the one hand, they manipulate the wholesale electricity market to push prices as high as possible and then will stand there bold face and say to all of us as consumers that our bills are going up because they’re only passing on the increases in the wholesale price.
“They neglect to mention that they’re the ones that have jacked up the wholesale prices.”
Source: ACIL Allen and AER Default market offer 2025–26 cost assessment model
Mr Christopher said that one thing consumers can do during this time is shop around for electricity plans.
“It’s a bit like your phone plan or insurance. People tend to just tick over and renew what they’ve already got,” Mr Christopher said.
“That’s usually the way over time to find yourself paying a lot more than you need to for the same service.
“One of the things I think we all need to do is do whatever we can to exercise our market power, shop around and get the best deal that suits our individual circumstances in how we use our electricity.”
The DMO for 2025-26 will be effective as of July 1, 2025.