The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has published its State of the Energy Market 2024 report, offering an in-depth look at key developments and trends across Australia’s energy markets over the past year.
The report highlights both progress and challenges in gas and electricity markets, emphasising the critical role of consumers in the ongoing energy transition.
The AER report notes that wholesale electricity prices have dropped from the peaks seen in 2022, but volatility has increased. High demand periods, impacted by weather events and outages in generation and network infrastructure, contributed to this fluctuation.
Notably, while states such as New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania experienced record-low electricity demand, Queensland recorded peak demand levels.
Residential investment in rooftop solar, batteries, and electric vehicles has surged, with solar installations in the National Electricity Market (NEM) now exceeding 20 gigawatts, marking an increase of 2.9 gigawatts from last year.
AER Chair Clare Savage highlighted the urgent need for improved network efficiency, urging industry to maximise current infrastructure use before investing in new assets.
“Now is the time to get creative. Regulatory sandboxing tools such as the Energy Innovation Toolkit are available to allow for the trialling of innovative approaches to new products and services that will deliver greater choice and cheaper energy options for consumers,” she said.
“As technology evolves and the sector innovates, consumer protections must also be designed to support an energy system where consumers can use multiple energy services to consume, trade and produce energy. We’ve presented detailed analysis on this issue to Energy Ministers and look forward to seeing this progressed as part of the National Consumer Energy Resources Roadmap.”
The report also flags the need for strengthened consumer protections as consumers increasingly participate in energy production and trading.
Savage noted that the AER has presented this analysis to Energy Ministers as part of the National Consumer Energy Resources Roadmap.
Gas markets have also shifted over the past year, with growing moves towards electrification as gas continues to play a role in supporting electricity reliability for large industry.
Meanwhile, affordability challenges persist, with the average debt per customer rising in 2023–24 despite government rebates helping to ease rising costs.
In addition to the State of the Energy Market report, the AER plans to release further in-depth reports on specific segments of the energy system in the coming months, aiming to provide ongoing insights into Australia’s evolving energy landscape.
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