Green Power Explained: How GreenPower Works, What It Costs and How to Get It

Green power is electricity that your retailer matches with renewable generation on your behalf, and in Australia the term usually refers to GreenPower, the government-managed accreditation program that has run since 1997.

Adding it to your electricity plan costs extra, and what retailers charge for it varies more than most people expect. This guide explains how GreenPower works, what it costs with the major retailers in 2026, how it compares with carbon neutral electricity, and what changed in the program this year.

Quick facts

• GreenPower is a voluntary, government-managed program. The NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water runs it on behalf of the National GreenPower Steering Group.
• When you buy GreenPower, your retailer buys and retires one Large-scale Generation Certificate (LGC) for every megawatt hour of renewable electricity it sells you, and every GreenPower Provider is independently audited each year.
• Retailer prices for 100% GreenPower in 2026 range from 1.1 cents per kWh with AGL to 4.95 cents per kWh with EnergyAustralia, both including GST.
• From 1 July 2026, new consumption-based GreenPower products must cover at least 30% of your electricity use. Existing customers on lower percentages are exempt.
• In the 2024 audit period, 183,912 customers bought 2,061,522 MWh of GreenPower, and 137,524 of those customers were households.
• GreenPower is not the same as carbon neutral electricity. Carbon neutral plans offset emissions, while GreenPower adds demand for Australian renewable generation.

What is green power?

Green power, in the Australian electricity market, means accredited renewable electricity that you buy on top of your normal plan. The official program is called GreenPower (one word), and the GreenPower program describes itself as 100% renewable electricity available through most energy retailers for households and businesses.

The electricity counted under GreenPower comes from the sun, wind, water and bioenergy. To qualify, generators must have been built after 1997 and native forest biomass is excluded.

The GreenPower program says electricity makes up around 50 per cent of a typical household's greenhouse gas emissions, which is why matching your usage with renewables is one of the more direct ways a household can cut its emissions without installing anything.

Some retailers use "green" in product names that are not GreenPower accredited, so the term "green power" on a plan does not guarantee accreditation. The section on checking accreditation below explains how to tell the difference.

How GreenPower works

The electricity that reaches your home is the same mix as your neighbours' because everyone draws from the same grid. GreenPower works through certificates rather than by sending different electricity down your line.

The process runs in four steps:

1. You choose a GreenPower product. You add GreenPower to your plan and pick what share of your usage to match, such as 30%, 50% or 100%.
2. Renewable generators create certificates. Each GreenPower accredited generator creates one Large-scale Generation Certificate for every megawatt hour (1,000 kWh) of renewable electricity it produces.
3. Your retailer retires certificates for you. Your retailer buys LGCs from accredited generators to match your GreenPower usage and surrenders them to the Clean Energy Regulator so the same renewable electricity cannot be claimed twice.
4. An independent audit checks the numbers. All GreenPower electricity retailers are audited every year to confirm they surrendered the right number of certificates for what they sold.

The result is that every kilowatt hour you pay GreenPower for is matched by a kilowatt hour of renewable generation put into the grid, and that match is verified by a third party.

Why GreenPower is counted on top of the Renewable Energy Target

Every electricity bill in Australia already funds some renewable energy through the federal Renewable Energy Target. Retailers must surrender LGCs for a set share of the electricity they sell, called the Renewable Power Percentage. The Clean Energy Regulator set the 2026 Renewable Power Percentage at 16.67%.

GreenPower certificates are surrendered in addition to that mandatory share. The program states that GreenPower goes beyond the mandated Renewable Energy Target, so a GreenPower purchase increases the total amount of renewable electricity the market has to pay for.

In practice, this means a 100% GreenPower product still delivers 100% of your usage in voluntary certificates, separate from what your bill already funds.

What "100% renewable electricity" means on a GreenPower plan

GreenPower products are sold as a percentage of your electricity use. A 100% product matches all the electricity your retailer bills you for, a 50% product matches half, and so on. Some retailers also sell products above 100%. ActewAGL, for example, offers Greenchoice at 30%, 50%, 100% and 200%, and the 200% option pays for twice your usage in renewable certificates.

The GreenPower provider list currently shows products at 30%, 50%, 75%, 82%, 100% and 200%.

There are two product structures:

• Consumption-based products charge a rate per kWh on the share of usage you choose, so the cost rises and falls with your bill.
• Block-based products charge a fixed amount, such as a weekly fee, for a set quantity of GreenPower regardless of how much electricity you use.

The new 30% minimum that started on 1 July 2026 applies to consumption-based products. The 2026 changes are covered in more detail below.

How much does green power cost?

GreenPower is an extra charge on top of your normal usage rates. The program's own guidance estimates 100% GreenPower at around 4 to 8 cents per kWh, with 50% costing roughly half that. That page was last updated in March 2025, and several retailers now publish lower prices than the bottom of that range.

GreenPower prices by retailer (2026)

The table below shows prices published by retailers on their own websites in October 2026. Retailers can change these charges with notice, so confirm the current rate before you sign up.

For ActewAGL and EnergyAustralia, the rate applies to the GreenPower share of your usage. On EnergyAustralia's 30% option, for example, the charge is 4.95 cents multiplied by 30% of your total usage, which works out to about 1.49 cents per kWh across your whole bill.

Other electricity retailers also sell GreenPower but do not show a per-kWh rate on their main GreenPower pages, so you will need to request a quote or check their plan documents.

What GreenPower adds to a yearly bill

The yearly cost depends on how much electricity you use. The figures below show the extra cost of 100% GreenPower at each retailer's published rate for every 1,000 kWh, and for an example home using 5,000 kWh a year.

To estimate your own cost, find your annual usage on your bill (our guide to reading your electricity bill shows where it sits), divide it by 1,000 and multiply by the figure in the middle column.

The GreenPower charge is only part of the picture. A retailer with a cheap GreenPower add-on can still cost more overall if its usage rates or supply charge are higher, so compare the full plan price, not just the add-on.

Our electricity cost per kWh guide shows what the base rates look like in each network area. AGL, for example, notes that plan discounts do not apply to its Green Energy charge.

GreenPower vs carbon neutral electricity

Carbon neutral electricity is the main alternative to GreenPower, and the two are easy to confuse. Carbon neutral plans pay for offset projects elsewhere to balance out the emissions from your electricity, while GreenPower pays for renewable generation in Australia to match the electricity itself.

The GreenPower program's position is that carbon offsets do not change how electricity is produced, and that buying renewable electricity is best practice for cutting emissions from electricity use. It treats offsets as a tool for emissions that have no zero-emission alternative.

The program also notes that GreenPower may cost a little more than carbon neutral electricity because retailers have to buy and retire renewable certificates.

Carbon neutral electricity still has a role if your main goal is a low-cost way to address your emissions. If your goal is to increase the amount of renewable electricity in Australia's grid, GreenPower is the product that does that.

How to check whether a "green" plan is GreenPower accredited

Plan names such as "green", "clean" or "renewable" do not mean a product is GreenPower accredited. Momentum Energy's SmilePower plans, for example, are not an accredited product or part of the GreenPower program, even though they carry a renewable promise.

To confirm a product is accredited:

1. Look for the GreenPower tick logo. The program recommends checking for the GreenPower "tick" logo on the product.
2. Check the official provider list. The GreenPower Find a provider page lists every accredited retailer and the exact product names it sells.
3. Read the plan wording. An accredited product will say that the retailer buys and surrenders LGCs from GreenPower accredited generators on your behalf. AGL's Green Energy page, for example, states that the product is accredited under the national GreenPower program.

Which green power providers offer GreenPower?

According to the GreenPower provider list, retailers selling accredited GreenPower products include ActewAGL, ACXargyle, AGL, Amber Electric, CovaU Energy, Diamond Energy, Discover Energy, Energy Locals, EnergyAustralia, ENGIE, Ergon Energy, Flow Power, GloBird Energy, Lumo Energy, Microgrid Power, Momentum Energy, Nectr, Origin Energy, OVO Energy, Pacific Blue, Powershop, Red Energy, Rimfire Energy and Synergy.

Availability depends on your state, your network area and whether you are a household or a business. Red Energy, for example, offers its GreenPower add-on in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, the ACT and South East Queensland. The provider list lets you filter by customer type, percentage and state.

In the second quarter of 2025, 40 GreenPower Providers offered products nationally.

What changed in GreenPower in 2026

The program updated its rules twice in the lead-up to 1 July 2026. The current version is Renewable Electricity Program Rules version 11.3.

A 30% minimum for new GreenPower customers

From 1 July 2026, all new consumption-based GreenPower products must cover at least 30% of the customer's electricity use, and this includes large business customers. Customers who signed up to a lower percentage before that date are exempt from the new minimum, so a 10% or 25% product already in place can continue. If you change or renew your GreenPower arrangement, the new product will need to meet the 30% minimum.

ACT customers can keep buying GreenPower

Version 11.2 of the rules would have stopped retailers selling consumption-based GreenPower in the ACT from 1 July 2026, because the ACT already has a 100% renewable electricity commitment.

GreenPower reversed this in April 2026. It published version 11.3 on 15 April 2026, citing practical problems for retailers around ACT distribution boundaries and its principle of not limiting voluntary demand for renewables.

The ACT position is different from other states. The GreenPower program reports that the ACT Government's own certificate surrenders covered 79.51% of the territory's commitment in 2024, and that buying GreenPower in the ACT counts as additional to that commitment.

The move from LGCs to Guarantee of Origin certificates

The Renewable Energy Target that creates LGCs has a constant annual target of 33,000,000 MWh until 2030. A new federal certificate, the Renewable Electricity Guarantee of Origin (REGO), is designed to continue after the Renewable Energy Target ends in 2030.

In its submission on the REGO scheme, GreenPower said it plans to adopt REGO certificates as the program's underlying certification. For households, this changes the certificate behind the product, not how you buy GreenPower.

Is GreenPower worth it?

Whether GreenPower is worth it depends on what you want from it. It does not lower your bill, and at 100% it adds roughly $55 to $250 a year for a home using 5,000 kWh, based on the retailer rates above.

GreenPower suits you if:

• You want your electricity use matched with Australian renewable generation and verified by an independent audit.
• You rent or live in an apartment and cannot install solar panels.
• You want an environmental product you can cancel without a long commitment.

It may not suit you if:

• Your priority is the lowest possible bill. In that case, comparing base plans will save you more than any green add-on.
• You already have rooftop solar and mainly want to reduce your own emissions. The GreenPower program lists rooftop solar and GreenPower as the two best-practice ways to buy renewable electricity, and solar also cuts your bill. GreenPower is charged on the electricity your retailer bills you for, so with solar you would only be matching the power you still draw from the grid. Our solar feed-in tariffs guide covers what you earn on the power you export.

Price is the main thing to check. The difference between the cheapest and most expensive retailer prices in the table above is more than four times, so the same 100% GreenPower outcome can cost very different amounts depending on who you buy it from.

How to switch to a green power plan

1. Decide on a percentage. Choose 30%, 50%, 100% or higher. A lower percentage costs less, and 100% matches all your billed usage.
2. Check which retailers offer GreenPower in your area. Use the official GreenPower provider list and filter by your state.
3. Compare the full plan cost, not only the add-on. Add the GreenPower charge to each retailer's usage and supply charges for your annual usage.
4. Add GreenPower to a new or existing plan. Retailers usually let you add it at sign-up or later. Red Energy, for example, lets new customers select 100% GreenPower on the sign-up form and existing customers add it by phone.
5. Check your next bill. Confirm the GreenPower charge appears on your bill at the rate you were quoted.

If you want help comparing plans with and without GreenPower, start a comparison with UtilityClub or browse our electricity guides.

Photo by Zac Wolff on Unsplash