Bills and rebates
If your power comes through your building, the price cap does not cover you
Every year the Default Market Offer sets a ceiling on what a retailer can charge you on a standing offer. If you live in an apartment block, a retirement village or a caravan park and your power is billed by the site rather than by a retailer, that ceiling is not yours. Not because anyone forgot, but because the rules exclude you from the definition of a customer. The AER says that is due to change.
We read the Australian Energy Regulator’s final determination for the 2026-27 Default
Market Offer, a 152 page document that sets the price cap taking effect from
1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027 (known as DMO 8)
. Most coverage of it, ours included, reports
the percentage the cap moved. This is about a group the cap does not reach at all.
What an embedded network is
The AER’s own explanation is the clearest one. At some sites, it says,
the electrical wiring is configured in such a way to allow the owner of the site to sell
energy to all the tenants and residents based there
. The site owner
usually buys energy from an energy retailer and then ‘onsells’ the energy to the
different consumers at the site
.
The AER names apartment blocks, retirement villages, caravan parks and shopping centres as typical examples. If your electricity account is with your building manager, your park operator or a company you have never chosen, rather than with a retailer you signed up to, this is probably you.
The exclusion, in the determination’s own words
Why the cap stops at your building
| The rule | The determination states that customers in embedded networks
are excluded from the definition of a customerunder the Regulations that govern the DMO. |
|---|---|
| The consequence | Directly following that, the AER writes:
As a result, we have not factored this into our DMO 8 determination. |
| Stated plainly elsewhere | Since the DMO does not currently apply to embedded network customers, the AER did not build their circumstances into its wholesale cost methodology either. |
This is a definitional exclusion, not an oversight and not a judgement about whether these
customers need protecting. The DMO applies to small customers, which the
determination defines as residential and small business customers, with
Small business customers are those that use less than 100 MWh a year
. Embedded network
customers sit outside that definition, so the AER has no power to cap what they pay.
What does protect you
Being outside the DMO is not the same as being outside the rules, and it would be wrong to
read it that way. Most sellers in embedded networks are what the AER calls exempt sellers,
because they do not have to be authorised as retailers. But, in the AER’s words,
they do need to hold a valid exemption from the AER and to follow certain rules that protect
your rights as a consumer
.
The AER publishes a public register of authorised retailers, sets out the seller’s responsibilities and the energy ombudsman’s role, and produces Easy English fact sheets on the rights of residential and small business customers buying from an exempt seller. Those are the protections that do apply. What is missing is specifically the price ceiling.
It is due to change, and the determination says when
The determination carries a section headed Looking ahead to DMO 9
, and this is in it:
The Australian Government has indicated that DMO protections will be extended to small
customers in embedded networks from DMO 9 onwards
.
DMO 8 runs to 30 June 2027, so DMO 9 is the 2027-28 price. The same section notes that the Regulations require the AER to publish a DMO guideline before 1 December 2026, which is the instrument in which much of this would be worked through.
The determination also records that embedded network operators argued their position during consultation. The Shopping Centre Council of Australia told the AER that operators face different cost inputs from retailers. The AER acknowledged those submissions and, because the DMO does not currently reach these customers, did not act on them for DMO 8, while noting that extending the Regulations may give it an opportunity to have regard to the efficient costs of supplying embedded network customers.
What to do with this
Two practical things. First, work out whether you are in an embedded network at all: the test is who bills you, not who owns the poles. Second, if you are, comparison sites that quote the DMO as a benchmark are not describing your position, so treat a national headline about the cap falling as information about somebody else’s bill.
We have not tested whether embedded network customers pay more or less than capped customers, and we are not asserting that they do. That is a real question and it needs its own work.
What this page is, and is not
This is a reading of the AER’s DMO 8 final determination, downloaded as a PDF and read on 24 August 2026, together with the AER’s own consumer page on embedded networks. It is general information, not legal or financial advice, and it does not describe any particular site or operator. The statement that DMO protections are intended to extend to embedded network customers from DMO 9 is the determination’s description of what the Australian Government has indicated, not a commitment we are able to verify independently, and intentions of this kind can change. We have not examined state-based protections, which differ, and we have not examined what embedded network customers actually pay. We hold no commercial relationship with any retailer, network, exempt seller or site operator.
Sources
- Australian Energy Regulator, Final determination: Default market offer prices 2026-27 (PDF, 152 pages, read in full 24 August 2026): the DMO 8 period of 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, the definition of small customers and the 100 MWh threshold for small business, the exclusion of embedded network customers from the definition of a customer and the AER's statement that it has not factored this into DMO 8, the statement that the DMO does not currently apply to embedded network customers, the Shopping Centre Council of Australia's submissions on operators' cost inputs, the "Looking ahead to DMO 9" section including the indicated extension of DMO protections to embedded network customers and the requirement to publish a DMO guideline before 1 December 2026.
- Australian Energy Regulator, Embedded networks customers (read 24 August 2026): what an embedded network is and the wiring arrangement that allows a site owner to sell energy to tenants and residents, the on-selling arrangement, the examples of apartment blocks, retirement villages, caravan parks and shopping centres, exempt sellers and the requirement to hold a valid exemption and follow rules protecting consumer rights, and the availability of a public register of authorised retailers and Easy English fact sheets.
Spotted an error, or has the rule moved? Tell us and we will check it against the determination and log the outcome here.