What your power costs, before the retailer.

The wholesale market, in plain terms

Electricity in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania is traded through the National Electricity Market. Generators offer power, and a spot price is set every five minutes in each region. Prices move with demand, the weather and what's generating: they can fall below zero on a sunny afternoon and spike on a still, hot evening.

Your retailer buys from that market and sells to you at a price that also covers networks, metering, environmental schemes and its own costs and margin. Most bills never show you the wholesale part. BillWizard does.

What you see in BillWizard

• The price right now in your region, in cents per kilowatt-hour, the units on your bill.
• The Wizard's forecast for the next 48 hours, with the likely range around it, so you can see when power is expected to be cheap or dear.
• Twenty years of prices, year by year, to put today in context.
• The market pulse on your dashboard: electricity in your state and the east-coast gas price, with how they've moved.

What did your power cost on the wholesale market?

For the period your bill covers, the Wizard works out what the energy you used cost on the wholesale market, and sets it beside what your bill charged you for that energy. If you export solar, it does the same for your exports: what they were worth on the market against the feed-in credit you were paid.

Why it's worth knowing

• You see what you're really paying for. The gap between the wholesale cost and your bill is the networks, the schemes and the retailer. Knowing its size makes a plan's price make sense.
• You can judge a wholesale-linked plan. If most of your use falls when wholesale power is cheap, a plan that passes the market price through could suit you. If it falls at the evening peak, probably not. See Amber Electric and VPP modelling.
• You can judge your solar credit. Comparing your feed-in credit with what your exports were worth on the market shows whether your plan values your solar fairly.
• You have facts when you call your retailer. It's a different conversation when you know what the energy cost.

Retailers don't pay the spot price for every unit: most buy contracts that smooth prices out, and they pay network, metering and environmental costs on top. The wholesale view is a guide to the energy part of your bill, not your retailer's exact cost. Education, not advice.