Hours each month when the 5-minute wholesale price was below zero, by region, from AEMO dispatch data. The current month updates every 5 minutes.
Negative price hours per month
Hover or tap a bar for the month's figures.
All regions, hours below zero
Download CSV| Month | QLD | NSW | VIC | SA | TAS |
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Data: Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), NEMWeb dispatch reports, used under AEMO's Copyright Permissions. Processed by ElectraGlobe. Prices are 5-minute dispatch prices in NEM time and may be revised. Informational only. Not for trading or financial decisions.
What this tracks
Each bar is the number of hours in a calendar month when a region's 5-minute dispatch price was below zero: the count of negative intervals multiplied by five minutes. Months are in NEM time (AEST). The current month is partial and grows through the month, and a month marked partial in the table is one where some days of data are missing.
October 2026
Spring is the peak season for negative prices, and October 2026 showed it. South Australia recorded about 244 hours below zero, roughly a third of the month, and Victoria about 201 hours. Tasmania followed with about 139 hours, largely when Victoria was exporting across Basslink. Queensland recorded about 55 hours, and New South Wales under five, consistent with its higher demand and its role as a net importer. In the same month New South Wales also had intervals above $20,000/MWh, a reminder that the same market can produce both extremes within weeks.
Why it matters for projects
A solar farm earns nothing, or pays, in a negative interval unless it stops exporting. The more negative hours in a region, the further a project's realised price falls below the average price, and the stronger the case for co-located storage that charges when prices are below zero. These figures are a starting point for that analysis, not a substitute for a revenue model. Read MLF and curtailment risk for how curtailment and loss factors add to the picture, or see how the NEM works.
Using the data
The table and the CSV are free to reuse with credit to AEMO as the source of the underlying prices. The CSV is at electraglobe.com/api/nem/negative-price-hours.csv and the same figures as JSON at electraglobe.com/api/nem/monthly.json. Each complete month also has its own monthly market report, and the BESS revenue calculator shows what these prices would have earned a battery.