Energy price agony

Businesses scramble for ways to cut soaring costs

BARRAMUNDI farmer Tim Thiele’s power bill has increased sevenfold since he opened shop 15 years ago.

Unsurprisingly, he searching for a solution.

The Julatten father owns Barramundi Gardens, a successful aquaculture enterprise set across two separate farms.

He joined dozens of business owners hoping to learn how renewable power could is drive down their costs at Cairns Regional Council’s ECOenergy forum at the Hilton hotel yesterday.

Barramundi Gardens’ monthly power bill fluctuates between $10,000 and $14,000 – a steep increase on the overheads he expected when he started out.

The business has grown over the years but Mr Thiele said his current bills were still out of whack despite switching one of his farms to solar.

“When the price goes up, we try to get a little bit smarter,” he said.

“We think we’re getting ahead of it and then the price goes up again, so you’re back to the drawing board.”

The forum coincided with the revelation household power bills in regional Queensland face 3.3 per cent increases in the 2017-18 financial year, alongside a 4.1 per cent slug to small business.

The Queensland Competition Authority flagged even larger increases which will now be subsidised under a $770 million State Government funding pledge over three years.

Division 2 Councillor John Schilling said that households would still pay the full cost – it would simply come from their taxes instead of their quarterly bills. He said the council had managed to knock about $1 million from its electricity bills just by optimising its tariff usage.

“Because (the State Government) owns the energy generators here in Queensland, they can cut the price at any time,” he said.

“They could have done that two years ago. They could have done it three years ago.” Cr Schilling warned the government had three years to come up with answers or those rises postponed by temporary subsidies would be compounded and hit energy users in one giant financial snowball.