Hundreds of thousands of customers were left without power as wild summer storms and searing heat took a toll on Victoria’s grid, requiring “load-shedding” to keep the system stable.
Wholesale power prices surged to about 200 times typical levels on Sunday evening in Queensland in a foretaste of what is expected on the grid later on Monday.
A big fall in wholesale power prices this year won’t be reflected on household power bills until July, if the grid survives a predicted long, hot summer.
The fresh low for electricity from coal came as demand for grid power also hit a new low, compounding the pressures from renewables on traditional generators.