Eye-watering increases in wholesale electricity prices in the June quarter of up to four times the level of the March quarter have underscored the huge price pressures in the sector that have left the market in turmoil and will hit consumers hard.

Prices for wholesale power more than doubled to an unheard-of average of $323 a megawatt-hour in Queensland in the June quarter, easily the highest of any state in the past two decades, according to adviser Energy Edge.