The ACT Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission says predictions that electricity bills in Canberra would rise by 5 per cent by June 2021 were inconsistent with the regulator's own estimates.
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It comes after the Australian Energy Market Commission report, released on Friday, forecast an $87 increase to the average territory household power bill over the two years from June.
The price rise would be driven by higher prices for renewable energy and distribution in the ACT, the report said.
"The [Australian Energy Market Commission] has not spoken to us. We have not had the opportunity to examine the report in detail, however their numbers are not consistent with ours and we are not expecting the increases they are referring too," a spokesman for the ACT competition and regulatory commission said.
The ACT minister for climate change and sustainability, Shane Rattenbury, said on Friday that electricity prices would peak in the ACT in the next two years but would stabilise through the 2020s.
Contracts for renewable energy over the next 20 years would deliver long term benefits for the city despite short term price increases, he said.
"As two of our biggest wind farms come on stream in the next 18 months, that will push those prices up a little bit at the other end we’ll see prices through the 2020s much more contained than other jurisdictions will experience," Mr Rattenbury said.
The Hornsdale 3 and Sapphire wind farms will begin providing electricity to the Canberra in the next 18 months.
A feed-in tariff scheme in the ACT pays a fixed price to a number of large-scale solar solar and wind power generators. The price is fixed according to a 20-year-contract awarded after companies had the opportunity to bid to provide renewable electricity.
Canberra energy distributor Evoenergy said it was examining how the Australian Energy Market Commission calculated the price impact of network costs.
"Distribution costs are lower in the ACT than other states and territories," a spokeswoman said.
The Australian Energy Regulator draft decision for the five years from 2019 to 2024 provided for customer bill increase of less than 1 per cent annually, which was less than inflation, she said.
The Australian Energy Market Commission report found that 68 per cent of residential customers in the ACT were on standing electricity offers, and could save more than $280 by switching to a market offer.
Standing offers are fixed for six months but offer higher prices, while market rates, which are generally cheaper, allow electricity retailers to offer discounts and other flexible paying options.
However, Mr Rattenbury said ACT electricity prices continue to be some of the lowest in Australia.
"We feel we’ve been able to set up a scheme where if households make that bit of effort to improve their energy efficiency, we can keep bills down and deliver really important environmental outcomes that will benefit all of the community as well," he said.
"We've worked extremely hard to strike that right balance and whilst our 100 per cent renewable energy program will bring some additional costs, things like the energy efficiency program that we brought in partnership with it can reduce your bill by the same amount," he said.
A report released last week by the Australian Energy Regulator found that despite high electricity usage in the ACT, Canberrans paid the second-lowest annual power bill in the country in 2017-18.
Mr Rattenbury encouraged people who were struggling to take advantage of the government's energy efficiency improvement scheme.
"If you are really struggling, contact the energy provider. There are schemes to enable people to pay their bills off over time if they are having particular difficulty."
