South Australia's wholesale electricity prices dropped by almost a third in the last quarter of 2025 to be the equal lowest in the nation, according to a new report from the Australian Energy Market Operator.
The price drop comes despite demand for energy reaching new highs in the quarter, with AEMO noting the significant price falls were driven by record renewable generation.
It comes as Ashton Hurn's Liberals declared they'd abandon the state's target of 100 per cent net renewables by next year - despite the state already being well on target to achieve this. It's another chop and change shift from a shambolic party already deeply divided over where it stands on Net Zero - with Mrs Hurn's latest flipflop aligning the SA party with Alex Antic's ideological culture war on renewables.
AEMO's latest Quarterly Energy Dynamics report for the final quarter of 2025, released today, shows SA's wholesale electricity price was the equal lowest of the National Energy Market jurisdictions, at $37 a megawatt hour (/MWh).
That's down from $104/MWh in the previous quarter and represents a staggering 30 per cent fall in the wholesale price from the corresponding quarter in 2024.
Queensland was $58/MWh while NSW was $75/MWh.
It comes as new inflation figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday show the annual Consumer Price Index inflation to December 2025 was 3.3 per cent in Adelaide - unchanged from the previous month - compared to 3.8 per cent nationally, up from 3.4 per cent recorded in the previous month.
The ABS showed the percentage change across the year for electricity prices was 1.2 per cent in Adelaide - compared to 21.5 per cent Australia-wide.
The fall in wholesale prices detailed by AEMO happened at the same time underlying demand in South Australia ticked up by 1.2 per cent to a fourth quarter record high of 1,624 MW.
AEMO says the wholesale price changes were driven by increased renewable output and less price volatility compared to the corresponding quarter last year.
All mainland NEM regions experienced record negative price occurrence, with South Australia recording the highest occurrence of negative prices - at 48.4 per cent of all intervals in the quarter.
Notably, the report also showed renewables comprised more than half of the energy mix for the first time in the December quarter, delivering 51 per cent of overall supply across the NEM. This is up from 46 per cent on the same quarter in 2024.
Meanwhile, the Liberals new leader Ashton Hurn and her Shadow Minister for Net Zero Stephen Patterson continue to resort to ridiculous claims in their desperation to talk down South Australia's energy security, blaming routine power distribution outages, which were quickly repaired by private distributer SA Power Networks, on supply shortages.
It's alarming that the Liberals present themselves as an alternative government yet clearly have no idea how the energy system operates.
They went on to claim the foremost plank of their energy commitment if elected in March would be to "ensure that Torrens Island Power Station B will remain operational until there is new, fit for purpose energy supply to replace it".
Not only are they oblivious to the fact it was the former Liberal government's Project Energy Connect that prompted the proposed closure of the Torrens Island facility, but they are evidently unaware that the Malinauskas Government has already negotiated with operator AGL to keep the power station operational for another two years.
As put by Tom Koutsantonis
It's alarming that the Liberals present themselves as an alternative government yet clearly have no idea how the energy system operates.
Blaming routine distribution outages on some imaginary system-wide failure shows just how inept and ill-informed the shambolic SA Liberals really are.
No wonder they had to pilfer Labor's entire energy policy agenda and try to pass it off as their own work - even promising to keep the Torrens Island Power Station B open despite the fact we've already done it!
Now they're walking away from a renewable energy target we're already on target to meet - next they'll fall into line with Alex Antic and the dysfunctional federal Liberals in abandoning Net Zero by 2050.
The Liberals can't work out what they stand for - this time just weeks ago they had a shadow minister for Nuclear Readiness and Net Zero! They're running out of energy sources to abandon.
The fact is, we are seeing positive signs in the energy market - prices in South Australia have increased by a mere fraction of the national total over the past year, and today's AEMO report figures continue to vindicate South Australia's leadership in renewable energy.
We have continued to attract investment in new renewable energy projects while also working to enhance the grid's stability, firmed by gas.
AEMO's report makes it clear that we're on the right track, showing unequivocally that the combination of more renewable energy in the system and reduced volatility creates the environment for lower wholesale prices.
While we can still see rare spikes in spot prices, this is the type of volatility we're committed to smoothing out as we firm our grid with long-duration capacity through initiatives including the Firm Energy Reliability Mechanism.
South Australia also has more $20 billion in approved renewable energy projects ready to commence, which will collectively put more downward pressure on energy prices.
Importantly, we want to see falls in wholesale prices reflected in people's energy bills. Energy generators and retailers are on notice that we're watching, and they should know that we expect these significantly lower wholesale prices will be passed on to consumers.
