The New South Wales Opposition says an independent review is needed to sort out billing problems with the state's electricity companies, ahead of the move to full retail competition next year.

The Government says it is already acting on problems which were identified in this week's report by the energy ombudsman.

The report by the ombudsman showed an increase in complaints from the public about their electricity bills and that billing complaints make up nearly two thirds of all criticisms of service delivery.

The Opposition says the failings could have serious implications for how well the state-owned companies can compete for business, when full contestability comes in from January.

Shadow Energy spokesman Duncan Gay says they may well be left behind and has even raised the prospect of job losses.

"I believe that the Minister Kim Yeadon urgently needs to put an independent review of the billing system in place," he said.

But a spokesman for Mr Yeadon says the companies are working to resolve the problems.

He says they have begun conducting full scale dummy runs with their billing systems to iron out the failings.

ABC News

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