In a move that will hurt consumers, AGL, Origin Energy and Energy Australia have all announced price rises for the 1st of July this year with small business and consumers set to be the worst off.
As reported by the ABC and News.com AGL customers in the ACT will be hit the hardest as they could pay an extra $579 a year for combined electricity and gas.
Small businesses in South Australia will see the biggest rises in price, up $1453 a year with Origin when gas and electricity bills are combined .
Why are the prices are going up?
Sepaking with News.com, Director of the Grattan Institute’s Energy Program, Tony Wood, said that the issue stems from both state and federal level politics in relation to energy policy,
“Labor, The Greens and the Coalition all have a level of capability and consumers should feel very angry,”.
“We wanted lower prices, increased reliability and a reduction in emissions and we’ve got exactly the opposite of all three,” he said.
Part of the problem according to Mr Wood is that our gas prices are now more closely linked with international markets.
Mr Wood went onto praise the Finkel review labeling it as a very workable model and one that should be adopted by the Government.
He went on to say that even if Australia did continue to rely on traditional power stations the world has now moved on, with clean energy such as wind and solar being the future.
Where did we go wrong?
There are a number of reasons that prices have gone up with an over-reliance on non-renewable energy sources being a large contributing factor of this.
“It’s a nasty problem and has led to very bad outcomes, and Labor, the Greens and the Coalition have all got their fingerprints on it.”
“… a price increase of 20 per cent is really nasty but I think consumers and businesses should be more concerned that these price increases are also accompanied by concerns about the security of supply,” Mr Wood said.
Investing in solar solutions is one way to beat the price hike with battery and solar options providing consumers and businesses a way around these price increases.
