The ACT prices off the NSW region of the grid but sets its own regulated price through its own regulator — and ActewAGL, the name on most Canberra bills, is not the network.
Canberra sits inside the NSW1 region of the National Electricity Market, so its wholesale price and its grid carbon intensity are NSW's. Almost everything else is its own. The regulated price is set by the territory's ICRC rather than the AER's Default Market Offer, and the market is dominated by ActewAGL — which confuses people, because ActewAGL is a retail brand while the poles and wires belong to Evoenergy.
The Default Market Offer does not reach the ACT. The Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission sets the regulated standing-offer price under a Price Direction running from 2024 to 2027, recalibrated annually.
For 2026-27 the ICRC allowed an average 2.73% rise on ActewAGL's standing offer — roughly $64 a year on a 6,500 kWh household, which is actually a small decrease once inflation is counted.
This trips up more Canberra households than any other detail. ActewAGL Distribution was renamed Evoenergy on 1 January 2018. Evoenergy runs the poles and wires; ActewAGL sells you the electricity. Some ACT customers are served by Essential Energy instead.
You can leave ActewAGL as a retailer without anything physical changing, because the network stays exactly where it is either way.
Your distributor is set by your address and cannot be switched. Its charges are regulated, so no retailer can discount them away — which is why a comparison has to be run for your actual network, not a state average.
The ACT does NOT use the Default Market Offer. The ICRC sets the regulated standing-offer price under a Price Direction running to 30 June 2027, recalibrated each year. For 2026-27 it allowed a 2.73% average increase on ActewAGL's standing-offer basket — about $64 a year for a 6,500 kWh household, and a slight decrease in real terms.
These are the network windows published by each distributor, not your retailer’s billing windows — a retail plan can bill different times. We use your own plan’s rates when we cost a comparison.
$800 a year
Formerly called the Utilities Concession.
Concession names, amounts and eligibility are set by government and change — most reset on 1 July. We publish only figures we could verify against an official source, and we link every one so you can check it yourself. There is currently no federal energy bill rebate: the Energy Bill Relief Fund ended on 31 December 2025 and was not renewed in the 2026-27 Budget.
618 g CO2-e per kWh
This is an emissions figure and never a price signal. Your rate is fixed by your plan and does not move with the grid, so nobody should tell you power is "cheaper right now" because the grid happens to be cleaner. Where it does matter: it sets how much carbon each kilowatt-hour of solar you self-consume actually displaces.
Upload a bill and we reproduce your current cost first, then cost all 787 residential electricity plans the AER publishes for the ACT, from the 10 retailers we track on the same usage and rank them by real annual dollars. Because we take no commissions, the ranking is not for sale.
Every retailer publishing a residential electricity plan to the AER for the ACT, straight from the data we compare. We rank all of them the same way.
Yes. The Australian Capital Territory is part of the National Electricity Market, so you can switch to any retailer that services your network. Switching is free, does not touch your physical supply, and most plans have no exit fee.
We compare all 787 residential electricity plans the AER publishes for the ACT, from the 10 retailers we track. We re-check them nightly. We exclude wholesale spot-price pass-through plans, because the AER reference rates for those are not what a customer actually pays — we would rather leave a plan out than rank it on a number we know is wrong.
Evoenergy, Essential Energy — which one serves you is fixed by your address. The distributor runs the poles and wires and its charges are set by the regulator, not your retailer. It is not something you can shop for.
Regulated retail electricity price, set by the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission (ICRC) for Price Direction 2024–27, recalibrated annually. The ACT does NOT use the Default Market Offer. The ICRC sets the regulated standing-offer price under a Price Direction running to 30 June 2027, recalibrated each year. For 2026-27 it allowed a 2.73% average increase on ActewAGL's standing-offer basket — about $64 a year for a 6,500 kWh household, and a slight decrease in real terms.
The main one is the Electricity, Gas and Water Rebate, $800 a year. Formerly called the Utilities Concession. Eligibility and amounts are set by government and change — always confirm with the official source before relying on a figure.
Evoenergy: 7am–9am and 5pm–9pm, every day. These are the network windows published by each distributor, not your retailer’s billing windows — a retail plan can bill different times. We use your own plan’s rates when we cost a comparison.
Over the last 85 days of AEMO's carbon-intensity index, the NSW1 region averaged about 618 grams of CO2-e per kilowatt-hour, which ranks 4 of 5 NEM regions we track (1 = cleanest). This is an emissions figure, not a price signal: your rate is set by your plan and does not move with the grid.
No. We take no commission from any retailer, which is why we can tell you to stay put when staying put is right. You pay a small yearly subscription (around $39), so the ranking answers to you.
Every figure on this page was checked against a government primary source. Where we could not verify a number, we left it out rather than estimate it — that is the whole reason to pay us instead of trusting a page funded by retailer commissions.
Upload one bill. We reproduce it, cost the market against it, and prove the saving in dollars — or tell you to stay exactly where you are.
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