Bad news for families: Network charges on power bills to rise 10 per cent

In its revised proposal to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) this week, in which it makes requests about how much it can charge its customers, TasNetworks indicated a 10.8 per cent lift in proposed network charges next year.

It also wants to lift charges by 5.6 per cent in each of the two years after that.

Network charges represent about 40 per cent of the average Tasmanian household's total electricity bill.

In a statement, the company acknowledged that households and businesses are experiencing "increasing cost of living pressures".

"The Revised Proposal reflects our commitment to provide Tasmanians with clean and reliable power as safely and affordably as possible," the statement on the company website read.

"We've sought to achieve this by constraining our capital and operational expenditure to the lowest sustainable levels, despite increasing real costs and inflation, to offset higher costs associated with items such as cyber security and insurance.

"While forecast revenue and bill impacts have increased ... the reasons for these increases (inflation, interest rates), are unfortunately outside our control."

The AER will now review the proposal, and will make a decision on what TasNetworks can charge by April next year.

Labor Pembroke MLC Luke Edmunds said the increases would be on top of energy price rises by the Tasmanian Economic Regulator, which have hit Tasmanians hard over the past two years.

"Tasmanians have had enough, power bills are going through the roof and this is just another thing to layer on top of it," he said.

Mr Edmunds said the reason TasNetworks was lifting its charges was because the government has taken out too much of its profits over the past several years, leaving it without the free cash needed to build and maintain power lines.

This cash shortage has resulted in it instead borrowing to fund the power line network, he said.

"The government has basically used TasNetworks as an ATM, taking about $400 million out of TasNetworks in this term of government," Mr Edmunds said.

During government business scrutiny committee hearings last week, Labor said noted that TasNetworks has about $2 billion of debt.

"That is debt that TasNetworks is carrying, and that is flowing through to people who they are charging to pay it off," Mr Edmunds said.

Labor also claimed that this high level of debt was the reason why TasNetworks decided to initially not build the Burnie to Staverton leg of the key North West Transmission Developments.

Energy Minister Nick Duigan has previously hosed down those claims.

In the government business committee hearings last week, he suggested that the government finance agency, TasCorp, was comfortable with TasNetworks' level of debt, and had no issue with the company borrowing to fund the NWTD.