The Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) has today released its draft decision on regulated retail electricity prices for regional Queensland in 2016–17.
QCA Chair, Professor Roy Green, said the review of notified prices began in November 2015 under a delegation from the Minister for Energy and Water Supply, the Hon. Mark Bailey.
“The draft decision is based on the latest information from competitive electricity markets nation-wide and on expert analysis from ACIL Allen,” Professor Green said.
“Typical customers on the main residential retail tariff can expect a 0.6 per cent rise in their annual bill.”
Professor Green said the small rise was driven by energy costs.
“ACIL Allen has advised us the rise in energy costs is primarily a result of the growth of the LNG industry in Queensland and recent uncertainty around the Federal Government Renewable Energy Target (RET),” he said.
“We have also undertaken a detailed review of retail costs so that our estimates of these costs are based on the latest information including observations from competitive retail electricity markets in Australia.
“As a result there has been a rebalancing of the retail cost component placing more emphasis on cost recovery through the variable retail charge rather than the fixed charge.
“This means customers will have greater scope to reduce their electricity bills by using less energy.
“It is a similar story for Tariff 20 (small business) with a rebalancing of the fixed and variable retail costs. It is anticipated that a typical customer will face an increase of around $16 a month (or 9.3 per cent annually).”
Professor Green said it was important to remember this was a draft decision and it was highly likely there would be changes in the final decision because of changes in the expected costs of supply.
“We strongly encourage stakeholders to review our draft decision and provide feedback through our submission process. We will consider all the issues raised in submissions made by April 20, 2016 in finalising our decision. More information on how to make a submission is available on our website www.qca.org.au ” he said.
The final decision will be published by 31 May, with the prices to apply from 1 July 2016.
As retail electricity prices in south east Queensland are to be deregulated from 1 July 2016, the regulated prices will not be available to customers in this region.
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