Victorian households' power bills will rise by about $400 a year under a secret plan by generators to
pass on all the cost of a carbon trading scheme.

Documents obtained show electricity generators plan to insert "carbon clauses" in all contacts for
future supply despite the promise of up to $5 billion in subsidies from the Federal Government.

The documents, from the
Australian Financial Markets Association's Electricity Committee,
reveal plans for "carbon adjustments" to pricing that will
pass on carbon costs to households and businesses.

A draft contract reads: "After the carbon scheme commences,
each relevant fixed price is deemed to
be increased by an amount equal to the carbon adjustment"

Experts say a carbon trading scheme will increase power costs by about 33 per cent over a decade.
The average annual power bill for Victorian family of four living in a three bedroom house is
now about $1350.

It will rise to about $1800 a year under the generators' plan
at a carbon cost of $20 a tonne.
But it could go higher if the cost of carbon rises
to $40 a tonne, as it has in Europe.

Victoria's brown coal-fired electricity plants are among the most polluting in the country.
By 2010, they will be producing 63 million tonnes of CO2 a year.

Environmental lobby group Total Environment Centre says the carbon trading scheme will be a
licence for generators to hit customers.
"A large amount of cash is going to be given to the coal-fired sector under the,
Prime Minister Rudd Green Paper yet, there will be no discount to customers"
It's a double rip-off of customers and the environment.

A spokesman for the Energy Association of Australia said competition would stop the full costs of
carbon reduction being passed on.