The ACT's economic regulator, the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission, has increased the maximum amount Icon Water can charge customers in its annual ruling.

It means Icon Water's residential customers' bills will increase by about 45 cents a week on average, or $23.21 a year.

It comes on top of an almost 12 per cent increase in electricity prices, announced earlier this month. That increase will add almost $200 a year to the average Canberra household's bills.

Icon's water charge will rise for the first time in two years, following a decision to freeze costs due to Covid in 2020, while sewerage prices will actually reduce in the upcoming financial year.

As a result, changes for non-residential customers' bills will range from increases of up to $7.64 a week, to decreases of up to $26.12 a week, depending on sewerage uses.

Icon Water had been permitted to raise prices by up to 1.52 per cent last year and chose not to. This year, it will unfreeze its water price, meaning the increase is a combined allowance from 2020 and this year's allowance.

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Senior commissioner Joe Dimasi said the 2 per cent increase would bring prices back to the normal trajectory of the maximum price level changes allowed. Icon would not be permitted to recover forgone revenue from last year.

According to the commission's annual report, sewerage prices have dropped as a result of decreased corporate borrowing rates over the past 12 months.

Icon Water managing director Ray Hezkial said stable operating costs had also contributed to lower sewerage rates.

Icon's assets, which included its network of dams, water and sewerage treatment plants, reservoirs and pumping stations and more than 6000 kilometres of inground pipes are worth more than $2.6 billion.

Mr Hezkial said increased prices would contribute to covering the cost of their maintenance and continued upgrades.

In 2021-22, Icon Water expects to spend more than $22.1 million at Canberra's primary sewage treatment plant and more than $17 million upgrading the capacity of the Belconnen Trunk Sewer main.

"Of course one of the most important things we need to be doing is making sure we are planning for the future of the network and making sure we are investing as the city grows," Mr Hezkial said.

"The reason these prices go up is that we need to invest in the sustainability of the network and the services into the future."

The decision on water and sewerage follows a ruling last week that electricity providers would be permitted to increase their prices almost 12 per cent from July 1, the maximum allowance for Canberra.

In response, the ACT government announced it would spend almost $10 million to provide concessions to low-income earners over the next four years.

The spending will increase the annual utilities concession for low-income households to $750 a year, up $50 on the current concession.

Mr Hezkial said Icon encouraged customers who were experiencing financial hardship to contact service providers to find out what help might be available to them.

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