The Australian Energy Regulator has sounded the alarm over the growing market power of Snowy Hydro as an increasingly important provider of back-up power for renewables, which it says have the potential to further increase costs in an electricity system where households are already struggling with higher bills.
The AER highlighted the rising concentration of ownership in particular in NSW and Victoria in flexible generation such as gas power, hydro and storage that can be switched on at will to meet peak demand as coal plants close and renewable energy grows.
