Electricity bills are set to surge by as much as 20 per cent from July, as power companies apply for their second round of rises within a year. It comes as Sydney is hit with rolling blackouts and demand is pushed to new peaks after a week of extreme weather conditions.
The average household bill will rise by $130 a year under applications to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal. The rise is about twice that already approved. EnergyAustralia is seeking a $56 rise for the average customer to cover costs incurred this financial year from the federal government's renewable energy scheme. Another $73 is to cover the costs of carbon reduction schemes for 2011-12, taking the rise for each household to $129 a year from July 1. Integral Energy and Country Energy are seeking similar rises.
The decision to shelve the carbon pollution reduction scheme will result in households paying more for their electricity than if it had gone ahead. Under the scheme the annual household rise would have been $63. In the middle of last year, electricity retailers were given approval to raise prices by 42 per cent over the three years to 2012-13.
Under the original approval, electricity prices were to rise by up to 13 per cent from midyear, following on from increases of up to 13 per cent implemented from the middle of last year. EnergyAustralia customers faced increases of 10 per cent from July 1, which will now be 20 per cent if the regulator approves the rises, as it is expected to do. Customers of Integral Energy face slightly lower increases while those for Country Energy customers will be slightly higher.
These rises have been approved to allow upgrades to the electricity network to avoid blackouts. The extra price rise applications lodged yesterday will push these increases to 20 per cent, as the power companies invest to boost the use of renewable energy sources, to reduce carbon emissions under federal government demands.
If the government's carbon pollution reduction scheme had gone ahead, this would have resulted in energy-efficiency schemes operated by the NSW government, such as the GGAS scheme and the newest energy-efficiency scheme, being halted.
''Without the CPRS, the GGAS scheme has had to be extended, and then there is the new energy-efficiency scheme that is being implemented,'' an industry source said yesterday. ''These inefficient state-based schemes are pushing up power prices. ''The federal government's CPRS would have been a more efficient way of recovering these costs.'
Sydney Morning Herald