If your electricity bill has jumped in the last few months, you're not imagining it. Australian electricity prices rose roughly 37% in the year to February 2026 according to the ABS — the biggest single-year rise in recent memory. And a lot of that jump didn't come from wholesale prices or network costs. It came from a government rebate ending.
The Commonwealth Energy Bill Relief Fund ended on 31 December 2025. For eighteen months before that, most households saw automatic credits of $75 per quarter appear on their electricity bills under a line called "Australian Government Energy Relief." Those credits are gone. The underlying electricity price only rose about 4.9% — but without the rebate softening the bill, what landed in your letterbox in early 2026 looked dramatically worse.
This is the context that matters when you're comparing retailers today. A lot of articles comparing EnergyAustralia and Origin were written when the EBRF was still active. Their numbers are now out of date. This one isn't.
Why 2026 Bills Look Different
From 1 July 2025 to 31 December 2025, the Commonwealth government provided up to $150 per household through the EBRF, delivered as two $75 quarterly credits automatically applied by your retailer. The previous financial year (2024–25) saw a larger $300 rebate. These were temporary programs designed as crisis relief, never permanent.
As of April 2026, the federal universal rebate is gone. There is no direct Commonwealth replacement. What remains:
- State and territory concession schemes — still active for pensioners, healthcare card holders, low-income households, and people with medical conditions. These vary significantly by state.
- Hardship programs — all retailers are required by law to offer payment plans and hardship support to customers in financial difficulty.
- Targeted federal programs — solar rebates (STCs), the Cheaper Home Batteries Program, and the Household Energy Upgrades Fund continue, but these are for equipment, not bill credits.
So when you compare EnergyAustralia and Origin today, you're comparing two retailers whose prices now flow through to customers without the federal cushion. That makes getting the comparison right more important than it was a year ago.
How Do EnergyAustralia and Origin Set Their Rates?
Both retailers operate across multiple states and offer a mix of market plans and standing offers. In regulated states, both must comply with the Australian Energy Regulator's Default Market Offer (DMO), which caps the maximum price for standing offers.
The DMO is reset annually by the AER. For 2025–26 (effective from 1 July 2025, known as DMO 7), the reference price for a representative residential customer without controlled load in the Ausgrid zone of New South Wales is $1,965 per year — an 8.6% increase on the previous year. Both retailers can price their market offers above or below this benchmark. In practice, between 90% and 95% of competitive market offers currently sit below the DMO, with the cheapest offers running 18–27% below the reference price.
Origin typically structures its plans around tiered usage rates — you pay one rate for your first block of daily usage and a higher rate after that. EnergyAustralia has historically offered both flat-rate and tiered options depending on the plan and state.
Neither retailer publishes a single national rate. Your actual price depends on your distribution network area, which is determined by your physical address. A customer in western Sydney on Endeavour Energy's network pays different rates than a customer in eastern Sydney on Ausgrid's network, even on the same retailer's plan.
What's the Difference Between Their Discount Structures?
This is where comparisons get tricky. Both retailers offer conditional discounts, but the conditions differ and the structures change over time.
Check the current Energy Price Fact Sheet (called a Basic Product Information Document, or BPID, in NSW, SA, QLD, TAS and ACT, and a Victorian Energy Fact Sheet in Victoria) for any plan you're considering. Retailer discount structures have changed substantially since 2019 and the rules keep evolving. What you might see includes pay-on-time discounts, direct debit discounts, or bundled benefits tied to gas or broadband. What was available last year may not be on offer this year.
The trap: a discount off a higher base rate can still cost you more than no discount off a lower base rate. A 10% discount sounds generous until you work out that the base rate was inflated to begin with.
Since the DMO's introduction, the AER has required retailers to advertise discounts against the DMO reference price rather than against their own undisclosed base rates. This makes comparisons fairer — but it only helps if you compare the estimated annual cost, not the headline discount percentage.
How Do Supply Charges Compare?
Supply charges (also called daily service charges) are the fixed amount you pay every day just for being connected to the grid. You pay this whether you use any electricity or not.
Both EnergyAustralia and Origin charge daily supply fees that vary by state and distribution zone. For residential customers, these typically range from around 80 cents to $1.50 per day — which works out to roughly $300–$450 per year in fixed charges alone before you've used a single kilowatt-hour.
For households with low electricity usage — retirees, apartment dwellers, or people with solar — the supply charge can represent a large share of the total bill. A plan with a lower usage rate but a higher daily supply charge can end up costing more overall for low-usage households.
When comparing the two retailers, always check the supply charge alongside the usage rate. Looking at either in isolation gives a misleading picture.
What About Solar Feed-in Tariffs?
If you have rooftop solar, the feed-in tariff (FiT) — what you're paid for electricity you export back to the grid — matters as much as what you pay for usage.
Both EnergyAustralia and Origin offer feed-in tariffs that vary by state and plan. The feed-in tariff landscape in Australia has shifted substantially in recent years as solar uptake has grown and daytime wholesale prices have fallen. In most states, typical market feed-in rates from major retailers now sit in single-digit cents per kilowatt-hour.
Victoria is worth noting specifically. For years the Essential Services Commission set a minimum feed-in tariff that retailers had to meet — most recently 3.3 cents per kWh for 2024–25. Following an amendment to the Electricity Industry Act 2000 in May 2025, the ESC no longer sets minimum feed-in tariffs. Victorian retailers now set their own rates, which cannot be below zero cents per kWh. As of early 2026, the average Victorian minimum feed-in tariff offered by retailers sits around 1.1 cents per kWh, with some plans offering higher rates (often capped at the first 10 kWh exported per day) as a competitive sign-up incentive.
If you're exporting significant solar energy, even a 2 cent per kWh difference in feed-in rates adds up. A household exporting 10 kWh per day on average would see roughly a $73 annual difference from a 2c/kWh FiT gap.
Which Retailer Is Actually Cheaper?
The honest answer: it depends, and anyone telling you otherwise is probably selling something.
The cheaper option depends on:
- Your state and distribution zone — rates differ significantly between, say, Ausgrid (NSW) and Citipower (VIC)
- Your usage level — high-usage households benefit more from lower usage rates; low-usage households are more affected by supply charges
- Your payment habits — if you regularly miss due dates, pay-on-time discounts are worthless
- Whether you have solar — and how much you export
- Your tariff type — single rate, time-of-use, or demand
The Australian Energy Regulator's comparison site, Energy Made Easy, lets you compare offers based on your actual usage and location. It's government-run, free, and independent of retailer commissions. It's also limited — it compares plans but doesn't tell you whether your current tariff type is right for you, whether you're eligible for rebates you're not claiming, or whether your solar is underperforming.
Beyond Switching: The Bigger Problem With "Free" Comparison
Comparing retailers is one path to savings. It's not the only one, and for many households it isn't the biggest one.
Here's the structural issue most bill-comparison advice doesn't mention: nearly every commercial electricity comparison site in Australia earns a commission when customers switch retailers through it. This is legal and disclosed in the fine print, but it creates a structural bias — the site makes more money when you switch to a high-commission retailer than when you don't switch at all. The advice looks free. It isn't.
This matters because switching isn't always the best move. Many households are on a competitive plan already and still overpaying because of issues switching alone won't fix:
- Wrong tariff type — you might be on a time-of-use tariff when a flat rate would suit your usage pattern better (or vice versa). A commission-funded comparison site has no incentive to tell you this because there's no commission in keeping you put on a better tariff with your current retailer.
- Unclaimed rebates — state government energy rebates and concessions go unclaimed every year. Eligibility varies by state and changes regularly. These aren't retailer products, so they don't generate switching commissions — which is why they rarely feature prominently on commercial comparison sites.
- Solar system underperformance — a faulty inverter or shading issue can slash your solar generation without any obvious sign on your bill. This is an equipment problem, not a retailer problem, and no comparison site is going to catch it.
- Usage behaviour — running major appliances during peak periods on a time-of-use tariff costs significantly more than running them off-peak. This is a household behaviour problem, and again, no retailer switch fixes it.
A genuine bill review looks at all of these factors — not just which logo is on the top of your invoice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is EnergyAustralia cheaper than Origin Energy?
It depends on your location, usage, and plan. In some distribution zones, EnergyAustralia's market offers are lower; in others, Origin is cheaper. The only reliable comparison uses your actual bill data and address.
Do EnergyAustralia and Origin charge exit fees?
Most current market plans from both retailers do not include exit fees, though some benefit-period or fixed-rate plans may. Always check the plan's Basic Product Information Document (or Victorian Energy Fact Sheet, in Victoria) before signing up.
Why did my electricity bill jump so much in 2026?
The Commonwealth Energy Bill Relief Fund ended on 31 December 2025. For 18 months before that, most households received automatic $75 quarterly credits on their bills. Those credits stopped. The underlying electricity price only rose about 4.9% in the year to February 2026 — but stripping out the rebate effect, the total out-of-pocket price rose about 37% per ABS data. Your bill didn't get 37% more expensive overnight; the subsidy that was softening it disappeared.
Are there still government energy rebates available in 2026?
The universal federal rebate has ended. State and territory concession schemes remain active for eligible households — typically concession card holders, pensioners, low-income households, and people with medical conditions. Eligibility and amounts vary by state. Check your state government's energy assistance page for current programs.
How do I compare energy plans without bias?
Use the government's Energy Made Easy site for plan comparisons — it's government-run and takes no commissions. For a review of what you're currently paying and where the overcharges might be, BillDecoder analyses your actual bill without earning commissions from retailers. The difference from commercial comparison sites: BillDecoder is paid by customers, not retailers, which is why it can recommend staying, switching, claiming rebates, fixing solar, or renegotiating — whichever actually helps.
Can I save money without switching energy retailers?
Yes. Tariff optimisation, rebate claims, solar performance checks, and usage timing adjustments can all reduce your bill without changing providers. Switching is one option, not the only one — and it's the option most heavily promoted because it's the only one that pays commission to comparison sites.
What is the Default Market Offer and why does it matter?
The Default Market Offer (DMO) is a price cap set by the Australian Energy Regulator for standing offer customers in NSW, South Australia, and South East Queensland. It sets the maximum a retailer can charge on standing offers and serves as the benchmark against which discounted plans are advertised. For 2025–26, the Ausgrid residential reference price is $1,965 per year, with other NSW zones, South East Queensland, and South Australia having their own reference prices set annually by the AER.
Last updated: April 2026. Based on AER DMO 7 Final Determination (May 2025), Commonwealth Energy Bill Relief Fund status per energy.gov.au, Victorian ESC minimum feed-in tariff decisions and the May 2025 amendment to the Electricity Industry Act 2000, and ABS electricity price data to February 2026.