Through the roof: Mapleton IGA owners' shock at soaring power bill

Mapleton IGA owner Kelly Anderson has been left reeling by a massive price hike which could see his supermarket’s annual power bill increase by $160,000.

Mapleton IGA owners Kelly & Linda Anderson have been left reeling by a massive price hike which could see their annual power bill increase by $160,000.

Mr Anderson said he was stunned after receiving his most recent bill, when he worked out his annual power bill would almost quadruple from $58,000 a year to more than $218,000.

“This will cripple my business and is completely unsustainable,” Mr Anderson said. 

“We are desperately looking for a way to quickly offset our electricity costs going forward because the alternative is to shut up shop for good.”

The family-owned business of 26 years is already in the process of installing as many solar panels as they can on the roof.  The electricity bill shows the peak energy charge rate for the premises is set to increase from 6.5453 to 25.5743 cents per kilowatt-hour when the 24-month contract period rolls over on November 1 – an increase of nearly 300 per cent.

The off-peak rate will rise from 4.4459 to 16.0345 cents per kilowatt-hour, a 260 per cent increase.

“I saw Energy Minister Chris Bowen patting himself on the back for supposedly keeping the lights on in Australia while I’m considering turning mine off for good,” Mr Anderson said.

“This is unacceptable in a country that produces so much power.” I simply cannot wait for Australia to have a discussion on Modular Nuclear power as the Clean and Green way forward for our power base load. When the sun goes down and there is no wind, we have not the current technology to economically and commercially store power with the current batteries.”

Mr Anderson said AGL told him the price hike was “out of their control” and had pointed to the war in Ukraine and the increase in gas prices as the reason for the power crunch.

Fairfax MP and Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy Ted O’Brien, whose party has been in power for the past nine years, said it was the Albanese Government who would be held to account if small and family businesses started struggling. He said this was because, before the election, Labor had consistently promised to cut power bills. “Only last month Labor was promising to cut power bills and now they’re in office, the Australian people expect nothing less than delivery on this promise,” said Mr O’Brien. 

Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen said recently “a decade of changing energy policies” meant there was “not enough investment in energy storage and non-renewable energy”.

“We can start and we have started but it is not going to happen immediately. What we can do is over the next few years get it built, get the pressure on energy prices through renewable energy, I think Australians understand that you don’t fix this in a day and we have never pretended we can.”

AGL said Mr Anderson’s original contract two years ago had been made when costs were “substantially lower” and the increase was “in line” with what was occurring in the market.

Most small businesses are on the “regulated standing offer” in Queensland and should see an average increase of about 13.4 per cent.

However, Mapleton IGA is classified as a commercial/industrial customer and must contract on an individual basis with energy retailers. Its prices are set largely at market rates.