Peter Geigen-Miller
London Free Press
October 1, 2002

 The province’s electricity market opened for competition May 1 and since then net power prices have increased 15 per cent, says industry watchdog Energy Probe.

High summer prices have lingered into September and the Independent Electricity Market Operator, which operates the deregulated market, sees no immediate relief.

The market operator predicts continued tight power supplies with upward pressure on prices.

Tom Adams of Energy Probe estimates the electricity price increase since May 1 works out to about 15 per cent when rebates and other factors are calculated in.

Now that summer is past, London Hydro expects moderate fall weather to bring a drop in prices back to levels seen in May, says spokesperson Nancy Hutton.

Adams is more pessimistic.

He’s worried Ontario is counting too heavily on nuclear power, a reliance that put the province on the brink of power blackouts during the summer, said Adams.

Shortages occurred because upgrades to units at the Pickering A nuclear station are behind schedule and the units were not ready to run this summer as scheduled, he said.

On top of that, a unit at the Bruce nuclear station was out of service for weeks after an accident.

Continuing heavy reliance on "unreliable" nuclear power will make a bad situation worse, said Adams. "I’m expecting to see very significant price volatility. I’m expecting to see the debt charge on our electricity bills to increase to pay for (the upgrades). I’m pessimistic to the point I’m afraid we could have blackouts."

NDP Leader Howard Hampton, leading a fight against electricity deregulation, agrees blackouts or brownouts are a possibility this fall because of tight supplies.

And deregulation has failed to deliver its promise of lower prices, said Hampton. "That promise is turning out to be quite false. Hydro bills are up virtually everywhere."

Before deregulation, electricity sold at a fixed price of 4.3 cents a kilowatt hour.

Prices dropped to an average 2.8 cents a kilowatt hour the week after May 1 and stayed low through May and most of June. Then came the heat wave, soaring demand for power and price spikes. Imports from neighbouring states and provinces were needed to keep lights glowing and conditioners humming.