Australians are being warned to expect to see their power bills rise this year, as cost of living pressures continue to bite.

Wholesale electricity prices account for about a third of the average power bill.

Australian Energy Council’s chief executive Sarah McNamara explained there are a few reasons why that matters.

“There are a couple of factors at play here at the moment,” she told Scott Emerson.

“Largely coal and has prices are rising, and that’s really because of the tight global market situation and factors beyond our control here in Australia such as Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

“Compounding this impact … is that we have had some coal generation outages that have been unscheduled … and that has occurred in Victoria, NSW and Queensland.”

Both of those factors are pushing up the wholesale price.

She predicts there will be price hikes but they hopefully won’t be “short and sharp”.

There are some suggestions it could be around 2 per cent, or around $30 for the average household in south-east Queensland.

Press PLAY below to hear more about how much it could rise

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