Once again, Robertson pulls no punches, accusing the power giants of gaming the regulator, grossly overcharging customers and overcooking forecasts for electricity demand. Although the carbon tax has often been the scapegoat for the dramatic doubling of electricity prices, the real culprits are the network companies whose spending on poles and wires accounts for half of the rises. The guts of the problem is that the electricity companies get a regulated return on their assets so, the higher they value their own asset bases, the more the regulator permits them to charge for their services. So they charge a heck of a lot. Assets have been, and are being built on forecasts that in my opinion are professionally negligent, says Robertson. To make mistakes in forecasting is human. To make the same mistakes year after year, and fail to recognise clear and generally accepted trends is inexcusable. The upshot is not only that the high cost of energy is slugging the entire economy. It is also that hundreds of thousands of Australians now live in energy poverty. According to the Australian Energy Regulator, in NSW alone over 100,000 residential customers cant pay their bills and have an average electricity debt of $542... Read more: smh.au/business/australians-now-live-in-energy-poverty-20141226-12d3sk.html#ixzz3N2wUElAy
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 22:39:45 +0000
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