Tag Archives: hydro bills

Hydro bills to rise again November 1

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by in Renewable energy

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The price per kilowatt hour is going up at all times of the day starting November 1.

Off-peak rates have climbed 51% since 2010

From the CBC:

Ontario hydro bills are scheduled to increase as temperatures decrease, the Ontario Energy Board announced Thursday.

The price per kilowatt hour will go up for on-, off- and mid-peak hours of the day starting November 1.

The Board says the changes will translate into a 1.7 per cent increase on a typical bill. That’s about $2 a month for the average household.

The lowest priced periods remain weekdays from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., as well as all day during weekends and holidays. The off-peak price will be 7.7 cents per kilowatt hour — a 0.2 cent increase from current prices.

Electricity prices in Ontario have now gone up 51 per cent in off-peak usage, 41 per cent in mid-peak usage and 41 per cent in peak usage in the last four years.

Parker Gallant in Ottawa September 30

25 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by in Ottawa, Renewable energy, Wind power

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Many people in Ottawa are followers of Parker Gallant’s Ontario’s Power Trip columns in The Financial Post. He is, of course, the “retired banker who took a good look at his hydro bills and didn’t like what he saw.”

He has plenty to say about not only our (rising) electricity bills, but the role of renewables in Ontario’s electricity costs, and the resulting effect on Ontario’s business competitiveness.

Parker Gallant will be speaking at a breakfast-time event in Manotick, Tuesday September 30th at 7:45 a.m., at the Hard Stones Grill on Manotick Main Street.

The event has been organized by the campaign for Dan Scharf for council in Rideau-Goulbourn. Seating is limited: RSVP to dan4rideau.goulbourn@gmail.com  

Donations to the campaign are welcome at this event.

Here is Parker’s latest, re-posted from Wind Concerns Ontario; he is vice-president of the coalition of community groups opposed to large-scale wind power projects located too close to Ontario communities.

Clean air day for Ontario means cleaned out wallets for ratepayers

Ontario’s cleanest day: too bad it cost you

The heading on Cold Air energy blogger Scott Luft‘s article read:  “September 20th: Ontario electricity’s cleanest day in my lifetime.”   He was talking about the fact that emissions from the electricity sector in Ontario produced almost no emissions last Saturday.  Why? Low demand meant clean nuclear, clean hydro and clean wind produced more than enough power to satisfy the 13,593 MW average Ontario demand for electricity, as reported by IESO in their Daily Market Summary.

Here are the details: on September 20th, nuclear produced about 270,000 MWh, hydro 82,000 MWh and wind over 40,000 MWh.  Taken together, they produced about 81,000 excess MWh of power which Ontario simply exported.  Ontario was also busy steaming off Bruce nuclear power, and probably spilling hydro and paying those gas plants for sitting idle.   It’s obvious Ontario didn’t need that 40,000 MW of wind but with the “first to the grid” rights of wind and solar, IESO was obliged to accept it.

As it turned out the hourly Ontario electricity price or HOEP performed badly on September 20th and averaged .82 cents per MWh or .00082 cents per kWh.  So, Ontario’s ratepayers were paying wind generators $135.00 per MWh while IESO were busy selling it off to our neighbours in NY and Michigan for .82 cents meaning (without counting in the steamed-off Bruce nuclear, the gas plants $500 per MW of capacity for idling, non-utility generators or NUG-contracted utilities for curtailment, solar generators, etc.) we were losing $134.18 for every MWh of power that those wind turbines produced.

What that means to you is, the 81,000 MWh we sold to our neighbours cost each of Ontario’s 4.5 million ratepayers as our Energy Minister, Bob Chiarelli, might say, a large “Timmies” coffee and a donut!  Please don’t stop your conservation efforts, however, as the Ontario Liberal government would like us to do this more often!

Ontario: truly a great neighbour!

©Parker Gallant

September 23, 2014

The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent Wind Concerns Ontario policy.

 

Parker Gallant on Hydro One: use less, pay more

01 Monday Sep 2014

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Reposted from Wind Concerns Ontario

What Hydro One is doing to over a million ratepayers is a shame

People who know me know it’s like Christmas for me when the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) posts the Yearbook of Distributors and it’s true, the data is a big gift!  You can imagine how a banker might react when confronted with the details the OEB releases.  It gets better when you look at it in detail.

Here is my take on the information as it relates to Hydro One, only one of Ontario’s 73 LDCs (local distribution companies). Hydro One is a monopoly that services 1,221,100 customers (according to the Yearbook) in Ontario, and has exclusive rights to the transmission of energy generation.  Caution some of the fact that follow may disturb some readers.

  • Total Hydro One full-time employees as at December 31, 2013 was 5,641, plus what are referred to as “non-regular” employees numbering 2,109.  In 2002 Hydro One had 3,933 regular employees, so full-time employees have grown by 1,708 (up 43.4%).
  • In 2002, Hydro One had 1,219,614 customers; at year-end December 31, 2013, they reported 1,221,100 customers but they apparently needed 1,708 additional full-time employees to service those additional 1,486 customers.   (The number of “non-regular” employees for 2002 was not available.)
  • Total “Purchased Power” by the 73 local distribution companies in 2013 was 125,306 million kWh and by Hydro One was 25,829 million, or 20.6% of the total. Yet Hydro One services 24.7% of all Ontario ratepayers.
  • The average OMA (operations, management and administration) costs for the 73 local distribution companies was $325.00 per ratepayer, but for Hydro One’s customers it was $495.60—that’s $170.60 more, or 52.5% higher.
  • If one removes the hard data for Hydro One and calculates the OMA for 2013 for the 72 LDCs the average comes to $269,  meaning Hydro One’s OMA is 84.8% higher. For 2012 it was only (I use the term lightly) 65.4% higher.
  • Gross Income (net of Power Purchased) was $3.418 billion for all 73 local distribution companies but for Hydro One it was $1,323 billion or 38.7% of all the Gross Revenue from those 24.7% of ratepayers.
  • Net Income, after PILT (payment in lieu of taxes) was $624.6 million for the 73 local distribution companies and $258.3 million for Hydro One—that represents 41.3% of Net Income for only 24.7 of all ratepayers.
  • Average monthly kWh (kilowatt hours) consumed per customer was 2,112 for all customers of the 73 local distribution companies, but only 1,764 kWh for Hydro One’s customers. That means Hydro One’s customers consume 16.5% less kWh. But… (see the next bullet for the other shoe to drop).
  • Average Power & Distribution Revenue less Cost of Power & Related Costs per customer annually for all customers for the73 local distribution customers was $691.35; for Hydro One (24.7% of all ratepayers) it was $1,084.10— a difference of $392.75 or 56.8% higher for Hydro One ratepayers.
  • Average Power & Distribution Revenue less Cost of Power & Related Costs per total kWh purchased for all 73 local distribution companies was 0.027 cents/kWh; for Hydro One customers it was 0.051 cents/kWh, a difference of 0.024 cents or about 89% higher.
  • Line losses, which we are all billed for, vary and those averaged 4.1% for all 73 local distribution companies; but for Hydro One they amounted to 6.8% or 69.5% more.
  • If one adds the 900 employees Hydro One outsourced in 2002 to Inergi to for their customer service/billing process to the 3,291 reported to be employed in their LDC unit, and then add that number to the 10,022 employees all 73 LDCs reported, Hydro One employees represent 38.4% of all LDC employees, while servicing only 24.7% of all ratepayers.
  • If one calculates the number of customers per employee of the foregoing it works out to 2,914 customers per Hydro One employee and 5,532 for the other 72 LDCs. In other words, employees of the other LDCs support 2,616 more ratepayers per employee compared to Hydro One.
  • Why are Hydro One employees paid more on average if they service 47.3 % fewer ratepayers?

There are a lot more damning statistics that even a mediocre mathematician could use to demonstrate how Hydro One is the least efficient of the 73 LDCs. I believe it is obvious that there are standards applied to municipally owned LDCs that simply do not apply to Hydro One.  They are given carte blanche by the regulator, the OEB,  to run roughshod over 24.7% of all of the ratepayers of the province without consequences.

The Ontario Ombudsman’s report, expected in the fall of 2014, will highlight the mess of Hydro One’s billing system; what will the Ontario Liberal Government do to correct the blatant mistreatment of over a million ratepayers by Hydro One?

©Parker Gallant

August 27, 2014

The views expressed here are those of the author.

Tough questions on spending for Energy Minister Chiarelli from Parker Gallant

13 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Renewable energy, Uncategorized

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Stipula_fountain_pen

Parker Gallant has written a letter to Ontario Minister of Energy Bob Chiarelli, as a concerned citizen of Ontario. He has included a series of pointed questions on the energy portfolio in Ontario, specifically what value there is for taxpayers and ratepayers, and what the effect will be on the Ontario economy.

Sample questions:

Why does the Ontario Power Authority claim it will pick up old refrigerators for “free” when the truth is, everyone is paying for that service?

Why does Ontario list “conservation” as a source of power when you can’t exactly plug a toaster into it.

Why does Ontario hand out grants of $650 to people buying energy-efficient air conditioners but only give $400 to less than 1% of Ontario’s citizens who are suffering from “energy poverty” and can’t pay their electricity bills? (And don’t get him started on the huge grants to people buying expensive Tesla electric cars…)

Read the full letter here! Letter to Energy Minister with questions

(Originally posted at http://www.windconcernsontario.ca )

Electricity in Ontario: higher cost, lower reliability

26 Monday May 2014

Posted by in Renewable energy, Wind power

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Here from Ottawa-based energy economist Robert Lyman, a commentary on how Ontario’s electricity system has evolved. (You may also wish to read a letter in today’s Ottawa Citizen by wind industry lobby group the Canadian Wind Energy Association president Robert Hornung, who would have us believe wind power is the cheapest source of power available. )

For most of Ontario’s history, the official energy policy of successive provincial governments was generally the same. The Province sought to keep electricity prices as low as possible consistent with the goal of ensuring that Ontario consumers and industry had secure and reliable sources of supply. With the election of a Liberal government in 2003, the goal changed. Since then, the Government has raised electricity costs significantly, emphasizing reliance on expensive industrial wind turbines, solar plants and biomass for generation, and using higher rates to force consumers to cut back on their energy use.

The consequences of those policies have been a doubling of residential electricity rates and the ever-increasing share of renewable energy generation as part of the provincial electricity generation mix. According to data from the Ontario Power Authority, in 2014 biomass, industrial wind turbines and solar plants will provide about four per cent of Ontario electricity supply, but will cost consumers $1.933 billion dollars, or 17 per cent, of the total generation cost. The amount of renewable energy brought on line is expected to increase significantly by 2018, adding further to the costs.

The Ontario Long Term Energy Plan, published in December 2013, included a table projecting what this will mean for the average residential customer who consumes 800 KWh of electricity per month. Taking into account the costs of electricity generation, transmission, distribution, taxes and related regulatory charges, the average monthly bill will rise from $125 in 2013 to 181 in 2020, a 45 per cent increase. Large industrial users will see their rates rise from $79 per MWh in 2013 to $104 in 2020, a 32 per cent increase.

These increases do not take into the account the significant costs associated with having to provide significant back up capacity because the wind and solar plants are “intermittent” sources of supply. This means that they usually produce energy when it is not needed, and production from these plants cannot be varied to accommodate changes in demand.  Ontario generation capacity now exceeds demand, and the Green Energy and Economy Act requires that renewable energy sources be given preferential access to the provincial grid over lower cost conventional supplies. The increases in rates do not take account of the cost of curtailing operations at existing plants or of losses on export sales. In 2013 this was about $1 billion.

So, do Ontario residents at least get more secure electricity supplies as a result of all these increased costs? The answer lies in…

Please read the rest of Mr LYman’s article here: ONTARIO ELECTRICITY – High Prices, Low Reliability