Call to remove cost of environmental schemes from Aussie electricity bills

A leading charity is urging the state and federal governments to remove the growing cost of environmental schemes and subsidies. See how much they’re adding to your electricity bill.

A leading charity is urging the state and federal governments to remove the growing cost of environmental schemes, which add 10 per cent to electricity bills.

St Vincent de Paul’s executive manager of policy and research Gavin Dufty told The Daily Telegraph that the move was a straightforward way to ease power price pressure.

“If they wanted to help they could take them off household energy bills,” Mr Dufty said.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has said environmental schemes make up about 10 per cent of the average bill.

Environmental scheme expenses have been increasing, the ACCC says, mainly due to the growing cost of rooftop solar subsidies.

Mr Dufty also said the NSW government should also absorb the cost of its renewable energy infrastructure “roadmap”, which is currently slated to be recouped from consumer bills.

Mr Dufty said he expected the roadmap costs to be “substantial”.

How much consumers will be slugged will not be known until February next year, following a determination by the Australian Energy Regulator.

Originally published as Call to remove cost of environmental schemes from Aussie electricity bills