Australia: the live status of the National Electricity Market
The National Electricity Market (NEM), coordinated by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), connects New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania into one interconnected wholesale market and 5-minute spot price - it does not include Western Australia or the Northern Territory, which run their own separate, unconnected grids. Coal still supplies the largest single share of NEM generation, but wind and utility-scale solar have grown fast, and the NEM is home to some of the world's largest grid-scale batteries. It isn't physically interconnected to Great Britain, so it's included here for comparison rather than as one of GB's own interconnector partners. Demand, spot price and generation mix below are live from the Open Electricity API.
- Data as of
- Loading live data…
- Spot price
- A$-/MWh
- Demand
- -GW
- Generation
- -GW
Loading live data from the Open Electricity API…
Generation mix right now
Loading live data…
| Source | GW | % |
|---|
Rooftop solar isn't included - see data sources for why.
Generation by source right now, ranked highest to lowest.
Generation mix over the last 24 hours
Fossil (coal, gas, distillate), renewable (wind, solar, hydro, bioenergy) and other (pumped hydro, battery discharge), from the Open Electricity API.
History
Choose a time range to see real recorded demand, generation and spot price over time, from the Open Electricity API.
Demand
Generation
Spot price
About the National Electricity Market
AEMO operates the NEM as a single interconnected wholesale market spanning five separate physical grids (New South Wales including the ACT, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, the last linked in via the Basslink and Marinus Link subsea cables), each setting its own regional 5-minute spot price that can diverge sharply from its neighbours' during congestion. Western Australia runs its own entirely separate, much smaller market (the WEM, around the South West Interconnected System) and the Northern Territory isn't part of either - neither is covered by this page.
Coal - a mix of black coal in NSW/QLD and brown coal (lignite) in Victoria - still supplies the single largest share of NEM generation, though several major coal plants have closed or announced closure dates through the early 2030s. Australia has no nuclear power at all (a moratorium has been in place since 1998), and wind and utility-scale solar have grown to a substantial share of generation - on top of which a very large amount of rooftop solar sits behind the meter, invisible to this page's wholesale-market figures (see data sources). The NEM is also home to some of the world's largest grid-scale batteries, including the Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia and the Victorian Big Battery.
Australia has no electrical interconnection with Great Britain at all - it's included on this site purely for cross-country comparison via the Comparisons page.
Context
- Nuclear powerBanned nationally since a 1998 moratorium - none in the generation mix
- Rooftop solarAmong the highest per-capita uptake in the world - not captured in this page's wholesale-only figures
- Grid-scale batteriesHornsdale Power Reserve (SA) and the Victorian Big Battery are among the world's largest
- Coal retirementsSeveral major NEM coal plants have announced closure dates through the early 2030s
Approximate wind + utility-scale solar share of NEM generation, roughly every five years - rooftop solar isn't included (see data sources).
Figures are approximate, gathered from public AEMO and Open Electricity/OpenNEM reporting rather than a long-run historical feed. Last checked: 19 September 2026.
Data sources for Australia
The Elexon Insights Solution, NESO Data Portal and Carbon Intensity API that power the Great Britain pages are GB-specific and don't cover Australia at all. This page uses one source only: the Open Electricity API (formerly OpenNEM), which powers demand, spot price, the generation mix (including the 24-hour stack and this page's History section) above and below, all for AEMO's National Electricity Market.
Scope and limitations, worth knowing before comparing this page to others on the site:
- NEM only - not all of Australia. Western Australia's WEM and the Northern Territory's separate systems aren't covered at all; every figure on this page is NSW+QLD+VIC+SA+TAS combined.
- No single "NEM price". Each of the five regions sets its own 5-minute spot price. The "Spot price" stat above is a demand-weighted average across all five (so NSW and Victoria, the largest loads, influence it more than Tasmania or South Australia) - not an official AEMO published figure.
- Rooftop solar isn't in the generation mix. Open Electricity's facility-level feed covers AEMO-scheduled and semi-scheduled generators, not the millions of individual rooftop solar systems behind the meter - those show up as reduced demand, not as a "solar" line in the mix table.
- Battery charging is excluded from the generation total. A battery drawing power to charge is a load, not generation - it isn't counted in the demand-vs-generation totals or the mix table/donut above, only battery discharge is.
Licence: Open Electricity's data is published under CC BY-NC 4.0 (non-commercial use, with attribution) - a stricter term than every other source this site uses, all of which are free for any use. See the sitewide data sources page for how this compares to the other pages, and About for the full licence disclosure.