Amber’s wholesale pricing model means that we pay you the true wholesale value of your exports if you export electricity to the grid from your solar and/or battery. If you export at times when the wholesale price is high you’ll earn a lot, but if you export at times when wholesale prices are low you’ll earn less.
When we apply our quarterly Wholesale Energy Price Cap at the end of each quarter, if you have earned more than 4 c/kWh on average for your exports across the period, we take the amount you earned above that rate into account when working out any credit you may be eligible for under the cap.
This applies to customers in all states, from 1 July 2026. Before that date, the threshold was 3.3 c/kWh for customers outside Victoria, and no export earnings were taken into account for Victorian customers.
What is Amber’s Wholesale Energy Price Cap?
We guarantee that over the course of each quarter you’ll never pay more than your applicable Wholesale Energy Price Cap rate on average for the base wholesale price (Generation Costs) component of your c/kWh usage price, or we will credit you the difference. On your bill, this component appears under “Detailed Charges” on Page 3 as “General Usage Wholesale (Av. Price)”.
The cap does not apply to the other pass-through charges that make up your usage costs — hedging costs, network charges, metering charges and environmental costs are not covered.
We run this comparison for you at the end of each quarter and credit your account with the difference if necessary.
You can find the current cap rates for your network here, and read more about how the cap works here.
How does the Wholesale Energy Price Cap work with solar?
Let’s go through a couple of examples showing how we’d compare two different hypothetical customers against the cap at the end of a quarter. Both are in Newtown, Sydney (postcode 2042) on the Ausgrid network, where the residential cap for July–September 2026 is 19.58¢/kWh.
Example 1: Solar, no battery
Meet Sudeep. He has solar but no battery, so he can only export during the day when prices tend to be lower, and draws from the grid at peak times.
Over the quarter:
- ⚡ He used 1,250 kWh from the grid at an average base wholesale price of 30¢/kWh
- ☀️ He exported 250 kWh at an average feed-in price of 2¢/kWh
Cap check:
- His average base wholesale price (30¢) was above his cap (19.58¢), by 10.42¢/kWh
- Credit on usage: 1,250 kWh × 10.42¢ = $130.25
Sudeep earned an average of 2¢/kWh on his exports, which is below the 4¢/kWh threshold, so his export earnings don’t affect the calculation.
He receives a credit of $130.25 ✅
Example 2: Solar and a battery
Meet Michelle. She's in the same area as Sudeep, but she has both solar and a battery. The battery lets her store excess solar and export it when wholesale prices are higher, and avoid drawing from the grid at peak times.
Over the quarter:
- ⚡ She used 500 kWh from the grid at an average base wholesale price of 28¢/kWh
- ☀️ She exported 1,000 kWh at an average feed-in price of 6¢/kWh
Cap check:
- Her average base wholesale price (28¢) was above her cap (19.58¢), by 8.42¢/kWh
- Credit on usage: 500 kWh × 8.42¢ = $42.10
Export earnings:
- Michelle earned 6¢/kWh on average, which is 2¢/kWh above the 4¢/kWh threshold
- Amount taken into account: 1,000 kWh × 2¢ = $20.00
Because her battery let her earn well above the threshold on exports, that surplus is offset against her usage credit:
$42.10 − $20.00 = $22.10 credit ✅
Export earnings can reduce your credit to zero, but they never result in a charge — you’ll never pay more because of what you earned on your exports.
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