Power prices for most regional Queensland customers are expected to rise only slightly next financial year, driven by increasing demands from the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry.

The Queensland Competition Authority's (QCA) draft determination set out a draft 0.6 per cent rise for 620,000 residential users outside the south-east.

Their bills are forecast to increase from $1,457 to $1,465.

However, business customers would be harder hit.

More than 92,000 small businesses could see an increase of 9.3 per cent and 9,000 large businesses could expect a rise of between 10.2 per cent and 10.6 per cent.

LNG industry behind rise

QCA chairman Professor Roy Green said although the residential increase was small, it was driven by wholesale energy costs - primarily a result of the growth in the LNG industry in Queensland.

He said although gas exports were a benefit to the economy, the industry's demand for power put a lot of pressure on the system.

"So we're seeing a lot of fluctuation in prices around that," he said.

Plus he said governments had to decide whether to withhold some of the gas for domestic use, quarantining it from world prices.

"What is happening in the LNG market is something that everyone should be paying attention to," he said.

"Queensland as well as the rest of the economy is shifting over to world prices for gas, and that's going to flow on to us, so it's [making an impact] at both ends.

"The idea is that in the longer term this will be beneficial for Queensland because we're gaining revenues from LNG.

"We also need to ensure that we benefit from the availability of LNG to the energy grid within Queensland, and that's going to require a lot of discussion and policy development."

Professor Green said next year's regional power prices were highly likely to change before the final determination in May because of changes in the expected costs of supply.

"Impossible to say [how much] because of the huge variations and spikes in the market place," he said.

"We're now using as a benchmark what is happening in the deregulated national electricity market, and those costs can change on a very regular basis."

He also said it was important to recognise that the regional market was heavily subsidised by taxpayers.

"The cost of supplying customers in regional Queensland is at a minimum 23 per cent higher for a typical customer, and the Queensland government pays a subsidy to make up the difference."

In south-east Queensland, prices will no longer be regulated by the QCA.