00:02David Beattie manages several apartment buildings in Adelaide's CBD.
00:07Like many, he's been surprised by recent hikes in electricity bills across the sites.
00:12We get a 43% increase. That's not helping in the current environment.
00:17Now the ABC can reveal in part that's due to hidden charges
00:22to fund the government's new firm energy reliability mechanism, better known as The Firm.
00:28Has it contributed? Yes. But take it out.
00:33I actually think prices will be a lot higher going forward without it.
00:37The government hasn't revealed exactly how much money will be collected and what people will pay.
00:42But the ABC understands almost $44 million will be added to energy bills this financial year.
00:49$24 million to keep AGL's Aging Torrens Island gas power station operating
00:54and $20 million to incentivise building six new battery storage projects.
01:00On average, the extra cost to households is believed to be about $23 a year,
01:05although the energy minister last month appeared reluctant to confirm any cost.
01:10So energy users are not in the gun at any cost?
01:16I don't think so, no.
01:17More recently, he clarified.
01:20So how's that not a cost?
01:21I'm talking about in the context of the batteries that we were talking about that we had just released.
01:26If you're talking about in the context of the administrative costs of the firm, yeah, there's a cost.
01:30The cost of the scheme was a factor in the Australian energy regulators' decision
01:34to increase South Australia's default market electricity rate earlier this year,
01:39a 1.4% bill rise for 66,000 customers.
01:44We are really worried about any predictions of increases in energy costs
01:48because we know there are so many people in our community at the moment who struggle to pay their bills
01:53and, you know, end up on hardship programs.
01:56The government says it's confident that the extra battery capacity that the firm is delivering
02:02will actually minimise electricity price increases.
02:05If we can keep these power prices relatively flat over the long term because of the firm, that's success.
02:11New costs for the next financial year will be revealed in March.
