Electricity bill pain has SA households bracing for a long hot summer

MORE than a third of South Australians are “extremely worried” about how they are going to pay summer electricity bills — four times more than the most-relaxed Australian residents in Tasmania.

ELECTRICITY bill increases of more than 20 per cent in July have caused “extreme worry” among many South Australian families about how they will pay during the high-consumption months of December and January.

According to a new national poll, 40.85 per cent of SA bill-payers say they are “extremely worried” about the bills they will receive.

And the poll of 1009 households shows SA residents are far more worried than interstate counterparts, with only 25.16 per cent of NSW residents in this category, 27.03 per cent in Victoria, 30.2 per cent in Queensland, 24.53 per cent in Western Australia, 23.53 per cent in the ACT 20 per cent in the NT and in the most relaxed state of Tasmania 9.09 per cent.

When added to SA residents who were not “extremely worried” but “very worried” nonetheless, the total of those concerned about paying their summer power bill increases to 74.8 per cent of the population, or three in every four people.

Uniting Communities utility bill expert Mark Henley said the figures show bill shock had now spread far beyond those who struggled to pay for necessities like food and housing.

“The reason electricity bills are such a big problem is that so many people budget down to the last dollar and even cent, but these bills can come in at $150 more than they expected, and they cannot cope with that variation,” he said.

But Mr Henley estimated that with the State Government plan to increase electricity generation, creating more competition, prices would fall within two years.

“There are some good things being put in place, but it will be two years and we need to keep the pressure on state and federal governments now,” he said.

The Hazelwood coal fired power station closed earlier this year. Picture: Mal Fairclough/AAP

In the survey 55 per cent of Australian households are expecting their electricity bills to be more than 20 per cent higher than last year.

And on this measure SA residents were also more pessimistic about summer bills. In total 64.79 per cent of SA bill payers believed their bill would be more than.

This was more than double those in the least worried state or territory, the NT, where only 30 per cent of bill payers believe that they will increase by more than 20 per cent.

The study was commissioned by airconditioning firm Close Comfort which has invented a system of micro-conditioning which, using 300kw of electricity, cools a zone around small groups of people in the home.

Inventor of the system James Trevelyan, said he had been living in blackout-plagued Pakistan when he developed the system and said it had practical applications in SA, especially for those who lived alone and needed to cool a small area only.