Here's the local angle on that...

Here's the local angle on that story...

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21724062-910,00.html


Power price rise alarms industry

CRAIG BILDSTIEN

May 14, 2007 02:15am
Article from: The Advertiser

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SOUTH Australia's biggest power consumers have written to the State Government demanding an urgent national investigation into soaring electricity prices.

They have told Premier Mike Rann and Energy Minister Patrick Conlon in a May 8 letter that higher charges are threatening their viability.

Their peak body - the Energy Users Association - yesterday described price increases as "widespread, unrelenting and unprecedented".

Among its members in SA are BHP-Billiton, AMCOR, Holden, Carter Holt-Harvey, Zinifex and OI (formerly ACI).

The association says spot prices in the national market have jumped by up to 270 per cent in the past 12 months, while wholesale contracts have risen as much as 100 per cent.

Since January, flat contract prices have risen from $43 to $56 per megawatt hour in SA, from $33 to $68 in Queensland, from $39 to $61 in Victoria and from $39 to $64 in NSW.

However, executive-director Roman Domanski told The Advertiser yesterday the "silence from the State Government on the issue has been deafening so far". Mr Domanski said peak, off-peak and flat load prices had risen dramatically in every state and retail prices were starting to rise by between 30 and 100 per cent as a result.

He said big electricity users throughout Australia were "gravely concerned" and wanted governments to act "swiftly and decisively".

"Factors which could have influenced the increases include the drought, water shortages and lax rules for generators bidding into the National Electricity Market," Mr Domanski said. He has asked for the issue to be "a high priority" at the next meeting of the Ministerial Council on Energy on May 25.

National Electricity Management Marketing Company corporate affairs director Paul Bird was unavailable yesterday.

A spokesman for Mr Conlon said the state's Essential Service Commission would review SA's retail electricity prices over the next six months.

"Those primarily impacted at present are businesses which are coming off fixed contracts with their energy provider," the spokesman said.