Shocker bills part of living in North

TOWNSVILLE residents are paying more for power simply because they don’t live in Queensland’s southeast corner, according to Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls.

The Queensland Competition Authority announced last week regional Queenslanders would be slapped with an up to 8.2 per cent increase on their power bill due to a “huge spike” in wholesale prices.

The State Government intervened by reducing the household bill increase to 3.3 per cent.

According to the QCA, the wholesale power price is made of four components, including: wholesale energy costs; the cost of complying with State and Federal government policies including the Renewable Energy Target;

National Electricity Market fees, ancillary services charges and costs of meeting prudential requirements; and

energy losses incurred during the transmission of electricity to customers.

Queensland’s northernmost base- load electricity generator is near Rockhampton.

Mr Nicholls said the North was hit with high prices due to transmission losses. “It means you have to push more volts up the line to have the same power at the end,” he said.

“The North is being held to ransom because it’s costing more to get energy up here.

“Looking at a new power station in North Queensland is something that we should be doing. You immediately remove the transmission losses which is an enormous cost.

“By refusing to consider that as an alternative it condemns North Queenslanders to a future of very substantially increased power prices.”

Mr Nicholls said the State Government was pushing government- owned companies to borrow money to hit renewable energy targets, with the cost passed on to consumers.

“The Government forces these companies to do things like renewable energy programs and every time they say to a generator ‘ we want you to investigate and spend $ 50 million on renewable energy or a solar bonus scheme’, the companies put that on the bill that they send out,” he said.

However a Department of Energy and Water spokesman said while the cost of “energy losses” from delivering electricity was higher in regional Queensland than in the southeast, residential and small business customers in regional areas were supported through the Uniform Tariff Policy.

“They pay for the same energy losses as customers in southeast Queensland,” the spokesman said.

“The cost of renewables ( wind and solar) is falling rapidly and is now on par, or lower than coal. Industry groups like Australian Industry Group and banks agree that new coalfired power is not bankable.”