I like how you framed this, mhaze:

//...when I pointed out that retail prices were rising, you and others raced to tell me that the real story was wholesale prices.//

Yeah, "raced" - as though the words of myself and others suggested a sense of urgency; presumably to cut off at the knees a line of discussion we quietly knew would see the unravelling of our narrative!

mhaze - OLO's "clever contrarian" calmly outsmarting the "wOkE" with inconvenient "fAcTs"!

In reality, however, the wording and tone of myself was far from the mad scramble you portray. Mad scrambles tend to be evasive, not explanatory. Yet, here I had:

- led with retail prices in my first comment, quoting the ABS CPI line,
- discussed why retail prices had spiked,
- explained the retail/wholesale relationship,
- and listed specific retail-level factors contributing to the overall cost.

That’s the exact opposite of "banishing" retail data. It’s integrating both.

//And the word 'wholesale' is used much more often than 'retail'.//

That's because it's the starting point for comparing the cost of the various sources of power generation.

You'd prefer to focus on retail prices because it muddies the waters, and because you think (or are hoping) that the mud contains costs showing renewables to be more expensive in reality.

Better luck next time.

Shutting down an old dc generator because we have no need for dc anymore.
Power from Victoria goes to Tas as DC power that is the most reliable way of sending power long distances. solar will be sent un converted to Singapore then converted to ac.
How much has it cost England so far for nukes that are a decade late and growing.
Grumble guts needs to get himself some education and stop talking shite

"Consumers pay retail, yes, but ...."

Not "yes, but." Instead "yes....the end".

The retail cost is all that matters. When a business closes because the price of electricity has priced them out of the market, its no comfort that the wholesale price fell. When the average consumer suffers power poverty, they don't care what the wholesale price is doing. But people like you want to talk about the wholesale price because it excludes all the ancillary costs of going renewable. But someone still has to pay those ancillary costs and that's why retail prices are and will continue to rise and why nations with higher renewable penetration have higher retail prices.

"Germany? Look again. Their high retail prices are due to legacy policy decisions, taxes, and levies. "

There's always a special case reason you come up with as to why nations with higher renewables have higher prices. Dozens of countries with dozens of reasons all the while ignoring the overriding reason

/cont

/cont

"Meanwhile, countries like Portugal, Sweden, and Spain - with high renewables shares - have seen falling or stable prices. "

I'm never sure whether you just make these things up in the hope no one will check or if your sources are just horrendous. eg Spain's retail (oh no that word again!!) costs rose 13% this year compared to 2024.

"And companies want nuclear? "

do they? Funnily I never said that. But your special talent is making up my views for me.

"Your $275 talking point"

This is the point. There are always promises about what renewables WILL do in the future. Oh and its just so wonderful. Your posts are full of these flights of fantasy. So when the ALP promised that cuts would come from their policies, I don't recall any of the renewable fetishists demurring. But when the promises fail to materialise there's always an excuse that wasn't mentioned before followed by the promise that things will change around any time now. Followed by the next set of excuses as to why prices refuse to fall as the fetishists promised. Ad infinitum.

"mhaze - OLO's "clever contrarian" calmly outsmarting the "wOkE" with inconvenient "fAcTs"!"

In the immortal words of Henry Higgins "By george, [he's] got it."

Meanwhile prices continue to rise. And will do so while ever we adhere to this madness. But I think things are moving. I even saw one of the left's spokesperson (Patricia Kavalas) on The Insiders yesterday say that at some point the ALP will have to admit that prices will never come down.

mhaze,

Your "retail prices are all that matter" line sounds punchy, until you apply it to actual policy or market structure.

Retail prices include far more than just generation costs: there's transmission, distribution, retail margins, taxes, legacy subsidies, environmental charges (including fossil fuel cleanup), and yes - state rebates expiring, as the ABS explicitly noted.

When we talk about wholesale prices, it's not to dodge the reality consumers face, but to trace where generation costs are heading, since they flow through with a time lag.

I think you're well aware of this now.

If you genuinely want cheaper retail prices, you follow the inputs - just like you'd track wheat prices when predicting bread costs. Would you dismiss falling fuel prices because people still pay tolls?

As for your Spain "gotcha": yes, Spanish electricity prices rose approximately 13% YoY in early 2025, but from a historic low - after massive drops in 2022-2023 due to cheap solar, capped gas prices, and reforms. Retail prices remain below 2021 levels. Sweden's prices are down. Portugal's remain stable. (EU stats back this up.)

Germany? It's always the go-to for deniers - but it's not renewables per se that made prices high, it's 20 years of policy layering, feed-in tariffs, and recently, gas exposure. The Energiewende's early mistakes don't invalidate solar's now-record low LCOE.

And no, I didn't say you wanted nuclear. I said companies are calling for it (e.g. AEMO's IESS paper, Origin's advocacy). Yet you mock renewables while offering no viable alternative.

Finally, the $275 figure was based on RepuTex modelling of wholesale savings. And guess what? Those savings are happening. The policy lag isn't deception, it's market inertia.

You pretend renewables must instantly fix 15 years of rising network costs, stranded fossil assets, and geopolitical gas shocks - or they're a failure.

You're not engaging in any sort of rational analysis here, just motivated reasoning and expectation sabotage.

Re Spain.... still just making it up JD?

From 2020 to 2025, average annual electricity retail prices rose by approximately 30–40% overall. You say that there were "massive drops in 2022-2023" when in fact 2022 was the peak year. Then a 2023 drop from the peak followed by a steady rise.

Lomborg's data looked at 168 countries to achieve the trends he found. Yet you continue to scrounge around trying to find one country that disproves his data. Even if you did find such an outlier, it would make no difference to the overall findings.

"The $275 figure was based on RepuTex modelling of wholesale savings."

The ALP and subsequently the government promised these savings to the retail customers. They never happened. Fudge all you want by thems the facts.

But its always the same in the climate realm. Bold predictions followed by mealy-mouthed excuses as to why the bold predictions didn't happen followed by more bold predictions which only the truly gullible fall for anymore.