Some energy retailers have followed through on promises to slash the price of electricity offered under the federal GreenPower scheme, but not all.
In January, Renew Economy reported on the discrepancy between the collapsing cost of Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) and the huge premium retailers were charging for GreenPower, a national scheme that guarantees a portion of household or business energy is from renewable sources.
At the time, households were paying mark ups of between 330 per cent and 840 per cent on an LGC price of just 0.7 cents per kilowatt hour (c/kWh).
Several retailers said they would review their pricing in June and many have, slashing rates — albeit still charging a premium in the case of ActewAGL of 550 per cent.
| Retailer | 100% GreenPower (c/kWh) | Change from January 2026 |
| LGC spot price 3 July 2026 | 0.675 | 3.6% ↓ |
| Amber | 0.8 | 73% ↓ |
| AGL | 1.1 | 75% ↓ |
| Powershop (owned by Shell) | 1.1 | 80% ↓ |
| Red Energy (owned by Snowy Hydro) | 1.2 | 64% ↓ |
| OVO Energy (owned by AGL) | 2.2 | 60 ↓ |
| ActewAGL (owned by AGL and the ACT government) | 4.4 | 33% ↓ |
| Origin Energy | 4.5 | ⎯ |
| Discovery Energy | 4.95 | ⎯ |
| EnergyAustralia | 4.95 | ⎯ |
| Momentum Energy (owned by Hydro Tasmania) | 5 | 1% ↑ |
| Diamond Energy | 5.5 | ⎯ |
| CovaU (owned by TPC Consolidated) | 5.5 | ⎯ |
| Rimfire Energy | 6 | ⎯ |
| Ergon | 6.22 | New entry |
* Other companies including Nectr and Engie offer GreenPower products but don’t list a cents per kilowatt hour price, while others such as Flow Power which are listed on the GreenPower provider site only offer renewable energy. Synergy in Western Australia now no longer advertises a c/kWh price, instead offering a $10-80 per billing cycle rate. Zen Energy was offering a GreenPower option but is now in voluntary administration.
And while some retailers have responded to the lower LGC prices, others have not bothered to move their rates at all, an indication of the low importance that some retailers attach to the lightly-used scheme.
The highest rate advertised, by Queensland retailer Ergon, is an 878 per cent premium.
The GreenPower scheme has been around since 1997 to give renewable energy projects an extra push by enabling consumers and businesses to buy electricity backed by LGCs.
The scheme includes LGCs from wind and solar farms but not most hydro and not from any projects generating before 2017.
It’s not a particularly widely-used scheme.
The most recent quarterly report available, from the third quarter of 2025, shows it had 131,750 residential users mainly in New South Wales (NSW), Victoria and Queensland, and 45,740 mostly in NSW.
It sold a total of 589,587 megawatt-hour (MWh) of accredited renewable energy.
To put that in perspective, in the wintry month leading up to July 7, when wind and rooftop and utility solar made up 30 per cent of generation, they still delivered 5,694,000 MWh of electricity into the National Energy Market.
How these prices are set is a black box, but electricity retailers justify their premiums by saying it includes GST, the admin involved in participating in a guaranteed and audited scheme, hedging costs.
Energy Consumers Australia head of advocacy and policy, Brian Spak, says there is a place for guaranteed renewable electricity in the market that comes with a premium, until Australia begins to reach its 2030, 82 per cent renewables target.
“I would assume there is a portion of consumers who do want renewable power now and out into the future, so certainty around that system is good,” he told Renew Economy.
“There is a longer term issue around the suitability of that as you get into really high levels of renewable penetration. This is on the other side of hitting the 82 per cent target.
“Around there you do need to start questioning, and make sure people are well aware of the premium they are paying in comparison to the impact they’re having.
“Ballpark, we’re around 50 per cent renewables in the system, so if people still want to green up half of their consumption that is good, but there are dimnishing returns.”
Open Electricity puts the penetration of renewables into the National Energy Market at 44.8 per cent in the year to 12 July, at 100,451 gigawatt-hours.
Ty Christopher, the director of University of Wollongong’s Energy Futures Network, does not think GreenPower is good value for money for consumers.
“I think it’s completely unnecessary other than for companies or organisations who want or need to demonstrate that they’re taking action on their carbon footprint and it has a role to play for them to be able to demonstrate they are decarbonising,” he told Renew Economy.
“For the average household I question the value of it at all. I think in a world where we now have 4.5 million households with solar and likely 550,000 batteries on them by the end of the year, I really question what value there is.”
Collapse and recovery
A quirk of the LGC market is that in between January, which prices were at $7/MWh, and now when they’re very similar, is that in between there’s been a massive downwards swing.
Between January and May, LGC prices collapsed to $2/MWh before jumping in the last month back to where they were at the start of the year.
Data centres are suspected to be behind the massive jump prices as they buy up LGCs to pump up their green credentials instead of backing or building actual wind or solar projects.
Reputex markets and data head Henry Wyld says the spike coincided with a lot of chatter about data centres, but also with mandatory climate reporting expanding to a second wave of companies from the start of July and an illiquid wholesale market.
“With the recent rally led by demand concentrated to a select few buyers, prices could retrace as quickly as they rose as this demand subsides – we saw some of this retracement in wholesale prices last week,” he told Renew Economy.
“That said, the balance of risks is shifting. Our latest Renewable Energy Market Outlook to 2030 points to demand tailwinds from mandatory climate reporting and emerging loads, alongside the potential for delayed renewable projects to slow certificate supply – a combination that could narrow the structural oversupply to provide more durable price support.”
All of which means the brief discount that Australia’s small number of GreenPower buyers are enjoying this year may be heading back up next year.
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