Emissions trading to cause prices to soar: industry
Updated
![Australia's power generators says emissions trading could force power plants to close and electricty bills to soar. [ABC]](http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/img/news/base/aus_climate_ABC_140408.jpg "Australia's power generators says emissions trading could force power plants to close and electricty bills to soar. [ABC]")
Australia's power generators says emissions trading could force power plants to close and electricty bills to soar. [ABC]
The electricity industry says the Australian government's emissions trading scheme could force power plants to close and electricty bills to soar.
New economic modelling commissioned by the Energy Supply Association suggests that a 20 per cent emissions reduction would push up power bills by about 28 per cent.
The association's chief executive, Brad Page, says the energy sector would have to make huge changes.
"A cut of that magnitude in our sector would probably see about a quarter of Australia's current electricity generation plants being retired, probably earlier than it otherwise would have been," he said.
Mr Page says renewable energy will have to be supplimented, "somewhere in the order of 17,000 megawatts of brand new electricty generating plants being constructed [to] also meet some low growth in the renewable energy target."
