Relations between the Commonwealth and South Australia have turned toxic after an angry row between the federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg and the state's Labor Premier, Jay Weatherill, played out on live television.

In bizarre scenes, the two figures stood shoulder-to-shoulder as they exchanged claims of hypocrisy, panic, and abject failure in the increasingly fraught energy policy debate.

The face-off followed the Commonwealth's announcement of a massive $2 billion upgrade to the government-owned Snowy Hydro Scheme using public money, which had come just 48 hours after the Turnbull government rounded on SA for promising to use public funds to build a gas-fired generator.

Mr Frydenberg described the Premier's performance in the unseemly stoush as "pretty unbecoming, pretty childish" and suggested he would soon be replaced by voters as a result.