June spot electricity prices strengthened and was the lowest June in 6 years for NSW/QLD and 3 years elsewhere. This financial year was the third lowest for NSW, QLD, TAS and VIC over the last 6-years. Gas spot financial year prices were the lowest since 6 years ago and surged late in the month.
Summary
- FY-25/26 wrap-up: the financial year that closed on 30 June averaged $78.44/MWh (NSW), $65.47 (QLD), $78.67 (SA), $78.17 (TAS) and $53.21 (VIC), down 25–40% on FY-24/25
- June vs the FY average: June ran above the FY-25/26 average everywhere except TAS with NSW +6%, QLD +9%, VIC +26% and SA +60%; while TAS was broadly in line
- June in historical context: despite a SA spike event, June 2026 average spot price was still the lowest June result in six years for NSW and QLD, and the lowest June in three years for SA, TAS and VIC
- A late-June SA event: SA's daily average spiked to $1,165/MWh on 22 June, the most extreme reading of the month with NSW, VIC and TAS all recording their monthly high within the same week
- Normalised prices: SA's daily shape flipped from the evening-dominant profile of 2024–25 back to a morning-dominant one, and its evening peak period (17:00–19:30) essentially disappeared once the month was normalised. The SA spike price event, not the usual evening ramp, did the heavy lifting
- Price band contribution: prices above $300/MWh accounted for 49% of SA's June average, with the top price tier alone contributing a quarter of it; NSW, QLD and VIC saw no contribution from that tier at all
- Negative prices: SA (19.4%) and VIC (16.3%) recorded their second-highest June negative-price incidence on record, behind only June 2023
- Risk-of-Change: SA's spread widened to $35.00 in June from $9.21/MWh in May, the clearest sign of how thin the region's generator offer stack became during the price event
- FY-25/26 gas spot prices: Financial year average prices were the lowest since FY-20/21 and some 11-15% below the previous year
- June gas prices: eastern hub gas tracked the same late-June pattern as electricity, falling to 6-month lows by 19 June before rebounding sharply as the SA/NSW/VIC price event unfolded. Milder weather and comfortable Iona storage levels kept the broader market well supplied
Just a reminder with our charts — you can click through to the source data behind each series, and the numbers below are drawn directly from the same dataset used in our companion Financial Markets report.
1.0 Financial Year in Review
This section provides a quick overview of the financial year performance since FY-20/21 for the electricity and gas spot markets.
1.1 Electricity Spot Market
FY-25/26 is now complete, and it is a useful reference point for where the spot market has landed after several volatile years.
The average spot price for the year to 30 June came in at $78.44/MWh in NSW, $65.47 in QLD, $78.67 in SA, $78.17 in TAS and $53.21 in VIC — down between 25% (SA) and 40% (QLD) on FY-24/25. Against the last 6-years, FY-25/26 was the third-lowest year for NSW, QLD, TAS and VIC, sitting above only FY-20/21. SA is the exception, landing fourth-lowest and in a near-tie with FY-23/24, the two years separated by just $0.11/MWh.
| Financial Year | NSW | QLD | SA | TAS | VIC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY-20/21 | $64.69 | $61.80 | $44.83 | $43.69 | $45.93 |
| FY-21/22 | $132.35 | $162.06 | $104.60 | $84.89 | $91.06 |
| FY-22/23 | $144.96 | $144.97 | $123.25 | $111.98 | $100.20 |
| FY-23/24 | $101.57 | $87.80 | $78.56 | $69.07 | $63.29 |
| FY-24/25 | $128.16 | $109.54 | $104.31 | $109.26 | $86.84 |
| FY-25/26 | $78.44 | $65.47 | $78.67 | $78.17 | $53.21 |
Average NEM spot price by financial year ($/MWh). FY-25/26 (highlighted) closed on 30 June 2026.
Average NEM spot price by financial year ($/MWh). FY-25/26 (bold) closed on 30 June 2026.
Against that soft financial-year backdrop, June itself was not a particularly cheap month. NSW ($83.30/MWh), QLD ($71.43) and VIC ($66.81) each traded 6–26% above their FY-25/26 average, and TAS ($76.83) was broadly in line, sitting 2% below.
SA was the standout at $125.73/MWh, June ran 60% above the FY average, entirely on the back of the price event described below. Even with that spike, June 2026 was still the lowest June result in six years for NSW and QLD, and the lowest June in three years for SA, TAS and VIC — underlining just how firm June 2024 ($152.75 NSW / $176.68 SA) and June 2025 ($256.20 NSW / $250.40 SA) had been by comparison.
1.2 Gas Spot Market
Gas has followed a similar path to electricity over the last six financial years. FY-25/26 averaged $11.38/GJ in Adelaide, $11.42 in Brisbane, $11.37 in Sydney and $10.76 in Victoria, the lowest since FY-20/21.
FY-25/26 was roughly 35–40% below the FY-21/22 and FY-22/23 energy-crisis peaks (which reached as high as $18.46/GJ in Adelaide), and modestly below FY-24/25 (down 11–15% across hubs) as well as FY-23/24, extending the post-crisis normalisation for a second straight year.
| Financial Year | Adelaide | Brisbane | Sydney | Victoria |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY-20/21 | $6.54 | $6.32 | $6.21 | $5.70 |
| FY-21/22 | $15.54 | $15.14 | $15.08 | $14.58 |
| FY-22/23 | $18.46 | $17.54 | $17.93 | $16.85 |
| FY-23/24 | $11.88 | $11.67 | $11.70 | $11.36 |
| FY-24/25 | $13.18 | $13.35 | $13.04 | $12.03 |
| FY-25/26 | $11.38 | $11.42 | $11.37 | $10.76 |
The spread between hubs, a rough proxy for how tightly the eastern gas market is integrated, has also narrowed back toward pre-crisis norms. It extended to $1.61/GJ at the FY-22/23 peak, when the east coast crisis pushed Adelaide well above Victoria, but sat at just $0.66/GJ in FY-25/26, one of the tightest readings in the dataset alongside FY-23/24's $0.52.
Victoria has been the cheapest hub in every one of the six years, while Adelaide and Brisbane have traded within about 20 cents of each other for the past three.
2.0 Overview
This section provides a brief overview of monthly electricity and gas spot prices.
2.1 Electricity Spot Price Summary
Every Region except SA is running below its Cal-25 average across the FY-25/26 and calendar year-to-date windows.
NSW's YTD figure of $74.27 is 28% below Cal-25, VIC's $49.32 is 37% below, and QLD's $66.25 is 22% below.
SA is the exception: its $87.21 YTD average is essentially flat against Cal-25 ($86.73), the net effect of two separate events — the Australia Day spike in January and the late-June event covered below — pulling an otherwise softer year back up to broadly unchanged.
TAS's YTD figure ($90.17) also sits above its FY average, reflecting a firmer start to the calendar year before settling into the $76–$96 range it has held since March.
2.2 Gas Spot Price Summary
Gas prices have followed electricity lower on a year-on-year view — every hub is running 21–24% below its Cal-25 average — but June's monthly average sits below even the softer YTD figure, at $6.87–$8.45/GJ across the four hubs. That understates how the month actually traded: gas fell to multi-month lows in the third week of June before rebounding sharply in the final ten days, in step with the electricity market's late-June price event (see Section 4.1).
3.0 Electricity Prices
This section provides a snapshot of daily spot prices, normalised spot prices, spot price band contribution, the proportion of negative prices, and Risk-of-Change for June 2026.
3.1 Daily Spot Prices
June 2026 divided into four broad phases.
1–4 June — Soft, mixed open. VIC and SA opened the month at their softest, with VIC averaged down to $6.71/MWh on 3 June and SA in the low-to-mid teens across the first four days. NSW and QLD were moderate at $42–$85/MWh per day, while TAS held firm above $80/MWh throughout, consistent with its hydro generation floor.
5–11 June — Recovery and consolidation. A step-change higher began on 5 June across all Regions. SA firmed to $103/MWh on 7 June and $95 on 11 June, while NSW reached $100/MWh on 11 June — its highest reading prior to the late-month event. QLD and VIC lifted more moderately into the $60–$94 range, with a brief soft patch on 9 June when SA (–$1.81 sign flipped to +1.81) and VIC (+$2.67) both traded near zero.
12–19 June — A second soft patch. Prices eased back across the board, with SA recording two negative days with –$3.20/MWh on 12 June and –$0.82 on 18 June; while TAS falling to its monthly low of $28.25/MWh, also on 18 June. NSW and QLD held in the high $50s to high $60s, with QLD touching its monthly daily low of $44.43/MWh on 19 June.
20–30 June — The SA price event. The month's defining episode began on 21 June, when SA daily average surged to $469/MWh and TAS recorded its monthly daily high of $151. The event peaked on 22 June: SA's daily average reached $1,165/MWh, by far the most extreme reading of the month, while VIC hit its own monthly daily high of $182/MWh the same day. NSW and QLD lagged the initial spike but caught up over the following days with NSW peaking at a daily average of $154/MWh on 24 June and QLD at $115 on 26 June, as the event broadened into a sustained high-price period through to 27 June. A partial retreat on 28 June (SA back to $70, NSW to $82) gave way to a further firming into month-end, with SA ($119), VIC ($123) and NSW ($121) all closing June well above their pre-event levels.
3.2 Normalised Spot Prices
Normalised prices express each half-hourly outcome as a number of standard deviations from that month's average price, removing the influence of the absolute price level so the shape of the daily curve — the timing and depth of peaks and troughs — can be compared cleanly across years. A value of zero means the interval priced at the monthly average; positive values mean above average; negative values mean below average.
NSW: The evening peak has eased in three of the last four Junes — from +2.05 (18:00) in 2023 to +1.66 in 2024, +0.92 in 2025, and +0.98 in 2026 — though 2026 also arrived slightly earlier in the evening ramp, peaking at 17:00 rather than 18:00 before easing more gradually. The midday trough deepened again in 2026 (–0.53 at 13:30) after 2025's unusually shallow –0.19, though it remained short of 2024's extreme –0.77. The morning peak (+0.56 at 07:30) also rebounded from 2025's essentially flat morning (+0.01).
QLD: Unlike NSW, QLD's evening peak has landed at exactly 18:00 in all four years, easing from +1.74 (2023) and +1.67 (2024) to +1.04 (2025) before firming to +1.20 in 2026. The midday trough deepened sharply in 2026 (–1.12 at 11:00) after 2025's shallow –0.21, nearly returning to 2024's extreme –1.27 — the deepest solar suppression of any Region in the dataset.
VIC: The clearest multi-year trend of any Region: the evening peak has fallen in every successive June with +1.57 (2023), +1.32 (2024), +0.88 (2025), +0.70 (2026) — while also shifting earliest of all Regions in 2026, peaking at 17:30. The midday trough has flattened in parallel, from around –0.50 in 2023–24 to just –0.15 to –0.16 in both 2025 and 2026, suggesting the flattening is now a two-year pattern rather than a one-off.
SA: The standout finding of the month. SA's June normally carries either a morning-dominant profile (2023, when the tallest reading of the day was +1.10 at 08:00) or an evening-dominant one (2024 and 2025, both peaking near +1.00 at 18:00). June 2026 reverted sharply to the morning-dominant pattern with +0.93 at 08:00, the second-tallest single reading in the dataset — while the evening period that carried 2024 and 2025 essentially disappeared: every half-hour from 17:00 to 19:30 in 2026 priced within a few cents of the monthly average (0.00–0.01), aside from a small +0.38 blip at 20:00. This is consistent with the daily price and price-band findings above: the late-June event pushed extreme pricing outside the traditional evening ramp window entirely, so the evening itself no longer stands out once the month is normalised.
TAS: No solar trough is evident, consistent with TAS's hydro-dominated generation stack. The deepest reading all day in 2026 was a shallow –0.16 overnight. The evening spike was the sharpest of any year on record for TAS: +1.31 at exactly 18:00 — more than nine times the +0.14 recorded just 30 minutes earlier — and falling back to +0.11 by 18:30. That knife-edge shape contrasts with 2023's broader, lower plateau (+0.32 to +0.50 spanning 16:00–19:00), pointing to a more concentrated, single-interval price event rather than a sustained evening premium.
3.3 Spot Price Band Contribution
SA's average was overwhelmingly shaped by extreme pricing
Prices above $300/MWh contributed 49% of SA's $126 June average, with the single highest price tier alone responsible for a quarter of it ($31/MWh) — a direct signature of the 21–24 June event, when daily averages repeatedly pushed past $300 and, on 22 June, past $1,000. By contrast, prices below $100/MWh contributed only 19% of SA's average, the lowest share of any Region, underlining how bimodal SA's month was: either comfortably soft or extreme, with comparatively little time in the middle.
NSW, QLD and VIC saw none of that extreme tail
None of NSW, QLD or VIC recorded any contribution from the highest price tier in June — their averages were built entirely from prices below $300/MWh. QLD had the highest share of its average from sub-$100 pricing (72%), consistent with it lagging the initial SA spike and catching up more gradually later in the month. VIC had the largest contribution from the $100–$300 band of any mainland Region (55%), reflecting its two monthly extremes — the $182 peak on 22 June and the $6.70 low on 3 June — sitting either side of that range.
TAS remained the most consistently moderate Region
Tasmania's average was built almost entirely (96%) from prices below $300/MWh, with 87% from below $100 alone — its narrowest, most hydro-anchored profile of any Region, even though TAS recorded its own monthly high ($151) during the same week as the SA event.
3.4 Proportion of Negative Prices
SA and VIC recorded their second-highest June on record for negative pricing
June 2026 saw negative price incidence rise for SA (19.4% of intervals, up from 12.8% in May) and VIC (16.3%, up from 15.1% in May), even as the month's headline story was one of price spikes rather than oversupply — a reminder that SA in particular ran a genuinely bimodal month, with soft, oversupplied stretches (1–4 June, 12–19 June) bookending the late-month event. Both SA's and VIC's June negative-price share was the second-highest for that month in our dataset, behind only June 2023 (21.4% SA, 18.2% VIC). NSW (0.4%) and QLD (2.3%) continued to ease further from already-low April/May levels, extending their multi-month downtrend.
Longer-term context
The historical data shows a clear structural rise in negative price incidence since 2019, driven by the growth of solar and wind generation, with SA and VIC recording peaks of 47.96% and 44.32% respectively in November 2025. June 2026's readings, while elevated for the month itself, remain well below those extremes, consistent with negative pricing being a predominantly shoulder-season and spring phenomenon rather than a winter one.
3.5 Risk-of-Change
Risk-of-Change (RoC) measures how sensitive the spot price would have been to a small shift in supply or demand during the month — the average $/MWh price impact of a 100MW change in the large Regions (NSW, QLD, VIC) or a 50MW change in the small Regions (SA, TAS). A low RoC means the market had depth on both sides of the dispatch curve; a high RoC means prices sat close to a steep part of the merit order.
SA's market depth evaporated during the price event
SA's RoC spread widened dramatically to $35.00/MWh in June (Low –$27.11, High +$7.89) from just $9.21 in May (–$6.75/+$2.46) and $16.07 in April — the clearest quantitative signature of how thin the region's offer stack became once the late-June event took hold. It exceeded both June 2025's $33.61 and January 2026's $27.55/MWh, making it the widest SA spread in this 30-month dataset outside of July 2024's exceptional $105.91.
The other Regions stayed comparatively stable
NSW ($6.90) and VIC ($7.47) recorded spreads within a few cents of their May readings, while QLD ($7.10) moved a little more, down from $7.70, indicating the price event, while it lifted absolute prices in these Regions, did not materially thin their market depth the way it did in SA. TAS widened modestly to $14.01 from $10.57 in May, with its usual upside-dominant asymmetry (bigger price impact from added demand than added supply) flipping to a downside-dominant reading in June (–$8.36 vs +$5.65) — a sign that the additional supply brought on through the event period found a steeper section of TAS's stack than usual.
4.0 Gas Prices
This section covers daily gas spot prices, weather-driven demand, and Iona gas storage through June 2026.
4.1 Daily Gas Prices
Gas prices across the three tracked hubs — Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney — opened June in the $9.50–$10.15/GJ range before easing steadily through the first three weeks of the month, bottoming out around $4.06–$4.96/GJ between 18 and 19 June. From 20 June, prices rose sharply and in step with the electricity market's SA/NSW/VIC price event, peaking at $13.58/GJ in Adelaide on 25 June, $13.03 in Brisbane on 27 June and $12.23 in Sydney on 26 June — roughly triple the mid-month lows.
The tight correlation between the gas and electricity price paths in the back half of June points to gas-fired generation being called on to meet the additional demand during the event, lifting the marginal cost of gas alongside the marginal cost of power.
4.2 Weather and Demand Drivers
Heating degree days rose sharply into winter across all five capital cities tracked, as expected for June, with every city recording its highest monthly HDD reading since August 2025 — Melbourne (184.4 HDD), Hobart (238.4), Adelaide (163.7), Sydney (91.0) and Brisbane (22.4) all well up on the shoulder-season months in between.
Notably, June 2026 was milder than June 2025 in every city — Sydney's HDD of 90.95 was 44% below June 2025's 163.65, Melbourne's 184.4 was 23% below June 2025's 238.8, and Brisbane's 22.35 was 57% below June 2025's 52.15. This matters for how the late-June gas and electricity price rise should be read: with heating demand running below the prior year, weather was not the primary driver of the late-month surge although the weather did cool-off in the later part of the month.
4.3 Iona Gas Storage
Iona storage entered June 2026 at 24,805 TJ, the highest opening level of any of the past six years, and drew down to 22,260 TJ by 30 June — a withdrawal of around 2,545 TJ, or roughly 10%. That is a markedly shallower drawdown than most recent years: June 2021 saw storage fall by 7,324 TJ (34%), 2022 by 4,386 TJ (24%), 2024 by 5,970 TJ (29%) and 2025 by 6,792 TJ (29%). Only June 2023, which also finished the month with a shallow drawdown, resembles 2026's pattern.
With winter heating demand tracking lower through June compared to last year (Section 4.2), Iona finished the month at its second-highest level of the past six years (behind only 2023), suggesting the underlying gas market remained comfortably supplied even as the late-month price event pushed spot gas prices sharply higher for a period.
5.0 Next Chapter
Our companion Generation Trends report will take a closer look at the supply-side of the market.
Disclaimer and Notes
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