EICL Prices for 2024-25

C (fixed) and D (variable) both up by 3%

The Board has made the decision to raise the Fixed (Part C) and Variable (Part D) charges by 3% to $49.19/ML and $15.96/ML respectively.  This is considerably less than the CPI for the last 12 months (5.4%) and also less than the CPI forecast for the next 12 months (around 4%).  This is also around 16% less than the price path that would have been expected from SunWater.

 

It was brought to the attention of the Board that the 15% discount from the government on irrigation charges expires at the end of the 24/25 year.  If this is not renewed and the SunWater pricing proposal is accepted by the QCA, it would result in an increase to the charges on our losses of nearly $100,000 per year.  An increase of 4% would need to be applied to EICL’s charges to cover this alone.

 

Due to the uncertainty of those items, the Board has decided NOT to publish an indicative price path at this time.  The State election is in October 2024 and the QCA should have their final report published by November 2024.  Therefore, by December 2024 there should be clarity on the way forward and hopefully a price path can be published at that time.

 

Account fee to be left unchanged

When the Account fee was introduced in 2020, it was decided by the Board to not increase it every year by CPI, but to look at it every few years and make adjustments then.  At the time CPI was running at very low levels (annual CPI at Sept 2020 was 0.7%) and it was thought that making an adjustment of CPI every year would only be small nuisance amounts (eg $4.20 based on the 0.7%).

 

It was planned to examine the fee in Dec 2023 for adjustment in the 24/25 year.  The CPI has gone up by 16% since transition until Oct 2023 = $96.  With the CPI currently running at 1.2% per quarter or 4.8% annualized, looking forward a year would equate to another $33 giving an upper increase of $129.

 

At the AGM, the motion was passed to remove 2 meter readings per year and it was explained that this would result in cost savings of $100 per account.  Therefore, based on the increase due to CPI and the decrease due to less meter readings, the board has made the decision to leave the Account Fee at $600 per year for the next 3 years, at which time it will be reviewed again (Dec 2026 for the 27/28 year).