• Residential electricity prices consist of wholesale, network, environmental policies (such as the Renewable Energy Target), and retail costs and margins. In Q3, wholesale costs were affected by the removal of the carbon tax as well as changes to regulated prices in some States.

• We expect residential electricity prices to fall in Q3 in New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia but to rise in Queensland. The table below sets out indicative price changes for all States except Tasmania and the territories. These estimates should be treated with some caution on account of increasing market complexity associated with price deregulation in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

• Overall, we expect weighted average electricity prices to fall around 5%. With electricity prices constituting just under 2% of total CPI, the overall impact on CPI is likely to be around -0.1%.

For further analysis download the full report.

• Q3 CPI – Electricity Prices (PDF)