Energy retailers will be "screaming blue murder" after they were excluded from a deal designed to slash power prices in Queensland's south-east, an economist says.

Households would be able to get a 25 per cent discount on power bills as part of the deal the State Government brokered to get interstate retailer Alinta Energy to enter the south-east market.

As part of the deal, Alinta will use wholesale electricity from government-owned CS Energy.

The move was designed to boost competition and tackle rising power prices, but economist Nick Behrens said the deal was not fair.

"It really does raise questions over whether or not competitive neutrality principles have been compromised," he said.

"What I mean by that is any private sector business that competes against a government-owned corporation (GOC) is entitled to do so with a level playing field.

"My view is that Alinta will probably gain a competitive advantage over the other retailers in south-east Queensland."

Energy providers were reluctant to comment when contacted by the ABC, until they saw the finer details of the deal.

However, Nick Behrens said he believed those retailers would now be trying to negotiate a similar deal themselves.

And he said they had another course of action, if they believed the Queensland Government had breached competitive neutrality principles.

"The south-east Queensland retailers will be able to lodge a complaint with the Queensland Productivity Commission, and they in turn will consider whether or not the principle has been broken," he said.

"But the reality is, it's a core component of national competition policy and that is that if you are a private business, you are one of these retailers, you are entitled to be able to compete fairly with Alinta which now has direct access to CS Energy."

Not playing favourites: State Government

Treasurer and acting Energy Minister Curtis Pitt said other retailers were free to seek a similar or even better deal, but would not say if CS Energy was supplying Alinta with taxpayer-owned electricity at a discounted price.

"I can't give you an exact figure, I'm happy to get back to you with that answer," Mr Pitt said.

"But of course we would be encouraging other retailers to make contact with CS Energy to see if there's a possibility of even better pricing.

"I'm not playing favourites because this is a deal which has been done by a GOC which is responsibly acting in a commercial way.

"While CS Energy is a GOC, they still are required to act commercially and it's very important that any deals … are commercial-in-confidence."

Mr Pitt dismissed suggestions CS Energy would try to recoup any discount to Alinta by charging more to other retailers.

"In fact what we are hoping is that there will be a further encouragement of other retailers to try to strike similar deals with generators," he said.

'Everyone's a winner': CS Energy

Mr Moore says the deal will return benefits to the taxpayer. ( ABC News: Ashleigh Stevenson )

CS Energy chief executive Martin Moore said the deal would benefit all Queenslanders.

"As someone who's been intrinsically involved in the deal for over a year, I can tell you there's absolutely no government subsidisation here," he said.

"CS Energy is a commercial business, we're government-owned but we're not government-run, and so we operate in competitive markets and we don't do deals that don't make money.

"This is a great deal for Queenslanders because it brings competition into the retail market and it's going to stimulate more competition with your existing providers, and it's going to put downward pressure on retail prices, so everyone's a winner in this."

Mr Moore said CS Energy would consider making similar deals with other retailers.

Mr Behrens tried, unsuccessfully, to win LNP preselection for a state seat earlier this year.