The Energy Users Association of Australia has published findings that show Australia needs to implement effective energy sector reforms to avoid the ‘negative economic consequences’ that could see electricity prices double by 2015.

 

The findings, published in the EUAA’s Energy Reform Scorecard 2011 Update, show that the pace and quality of energy reform has only increased slightly in the last year.

 

The EUAA’s report pointed to two reviews conducted by the Standing Council on Energy & Resources, the Energy Market Reform (or Parer) Review in 2002 and the Energy Reform Implementation Group (ERIG) in 2007, which both found that earlier reforms were successful, but more was required to develop the sector.

 

“In fact, the Parer Report estimated that an additional $8.3 billion in GDP could be generated by implementing its recommendations. This is surely worth having and never more so than now when a range of pressures are all pushing energy prices up,” said Roman Domanski, Executive Director of the EUAA.

 

“The areas where there have been developments are in climate change policy with the Federal Government‟s Clean Energy Futures (CEF) package; the partial privatisation of the electricity assets in New South Wales; and acknowledgement of the problems in the economic regulation of the electricity networks and the Australian Energy Regulator‟s (AER) attempt to redress the balance that currently favour the network businesses.”

 

The scorecard can be found here