Homes and businesses will start to feel some relief from soaring electricity bills within weeks as authorities move to cut prices for hundreds of thousands of customers on the eastern seaboard by as much as 9 per cent for the first time in two years.

In welcome news for households battling mounting cost-of-living stresses, the Australian Energy Regulator on Thursday locked in the main consumer price caps, known as default market offers, to begin from July 1, determining it would not raise prices in most regions for the coming financial year.

Instead, it intends to modestly reduce most default offers – the maximum that retailers can charge customers on standard retail plans – by between 1 and 9 per cent.

Households in NSW will receive a reduction of about 1 per cent, or about $28, compared with last year, while prices for businesses in the state will fall by up to 8 per cent, or $402.

Prices in South Australia will be 2.8 per cent, or $63, lower for residential customers, and 8.8 per cent lower, or $512, for businesses, while prices in south-east Queensland will rise by 4.2 per cent ($83) for homes and 1 per cent ($44) for businesses.

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Victoria’s Essential Services Commission, which determines its own default offer, will reduce prices 6 per cent ($100) for residential customers and about 7 per cent ($260) for small businesses.

Changes to this year’s regulated prices will directly affect hundreds of thousands of consumers who do not take up special deals, but will also act as a reference point for electricity retailers, such as AGL, Origin and EnergyAustralia, as they assess their next pricing cycles across their wider customer bases.

Clare Savage, chair of the Australian Energy Regulator, said the regulator understood that cost of living pressures were “front of mind” for many homes and businesses.