The Council of Social Services in Tasmania voiced out concerns today that residents of the state could be hit by spikes in the price of electricity as the state government announced changes in the power industry which includes permission for Aurora Energy to recover its operating costs.

Welfare council chief executive Martin Gibson said that the Economic Regulator's decision would lead to higher electricity bill for Tasmanians and what remained to be seen is "what the level of electricity price rises will be, and certainly if they're at the upper end of the scale, that would be of serious concern to us."

The government arranged a deal to set up a panel in exchange for Greens' support regulating the price Hydro Tasmania could charge Aurora for electricity as Greens' spokesman Kim Booth said that the independent panel of experts would be given only a year to study and review the energy sector.

Mr Booth said that he prefers that panellists would come from outside of the state's energy industry and the panel is "expecting it'll be happening very, very soon because it's got to prepare and publish a draft report available for public comment fairly soon and a final report by the 30th of June 2011."

He said that the panel is being given an allowance of not more than 12 months to complete all of the investigations, the summary and the reporting.