POWER companies in Victoria are being forced to pay five times as much for electricity as they did three years ago and are now reliant on other states to keep the lights on.

The Herald Sun can reveal Victoria flipped to taking more electricity from the rest of the country than it was exporting for the first time in 2018-19. It is also now a net importer along with South Australia — a state that has had some of the highest wholesale energy prices in the world in recent years.

Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor said he feared Victoria would face more blackouts this summer.