Vik Kirsch
Guelph Mercury
January 24, 2003

WELLINGTON — Guelph Hydro is about to install load limiters that supply delinquent customers with only enough power to operate a furnace through the cold winter months.

Centre Wellington Hydro is considering following suit with the devices, which connect to hydro meters at the home or office.

Energy Probe executive director Thomas Adams blames the provincial government for fuelling delinquency.

Provincial Energy Minister John Baird last December decreed utilities couldn’t cut off power to delinquent customers until the end of March.

"A lot of customers understood that to mean they don’t have to pay bills anymore," Adams said Thursday.

But Baird’s chief of staff, Will Stewart, said utilities received a letter Tuesday from the minister telling them they could use load limiters.

They are devices the two local utilities had used on occasion until the recent moratorium.

Guelph Hydro chief executive Jim MacKenzie said the load limiters could be used on as many as 200 delinquent customers, though staff continue to try to convince them to settle accounts or agree to payment schedules. He added he couldn’t readily say how much the utility is owed.

"It’s a last resort," said MacKenzie, whose utility serves 40,500 customers. "We do have a number of load limiters."

He stressed customers "have a responsibility to pay the bill."

Board chair Paul Truex said the size and scope of the delinquency problem is unclear.

He suspects it’s minor, noting it wasn’t an issue when the board met in December to review operations.

He’s awaiting next Tuesday’s board meeting to find out how many people are delinquent and what the utility is owed, though the municipally owned company may not make that public, he noted.

Resorting to the devices is nothing new. "We’ve used those load limiters for some time in Guelph. I think most utilities have," said Truex. Last year, he added, they were used "probably a handful of times."

But MacKenzie conceded delinquency is now on the rise. "I can tell you it’s a problem."

Centre Wellington Hydro is evaluating whether to use load limiters.

"We’re looking at that right now. They’re kind of a last resort," said president Doug Sherwood, whose utility has 5,600 customers.

"We saw a rise in delinquency. We’re in the process of looking at the numbers, but it did go up, definitely. We have noticed a substantial increase."

Harold Kelly [right], a linesman with Centre Wellington Hydro, displays devices that limit the amount of power supplied to delinquent customers.

Energy Probe’s Adams said the problem of delinquency can be significant in cities like Guelph, with high post-secondary student populations, since students tend to move frequently. ‘It’s very easy for the utility bill to be left behind."

Still, Adams of Energy Probe argued load limiters exacerbate hardships for families.

"It can really interfere with households."

A better alternative, he said, is to require problem customers to make deposits.

While he sympathized with families having difficulty paying their bills, Adams said there’s a good reason utilities pursue money owed. Those costs are passed on to other customers.

"It’s in the general interests of everyone that all the customers pay their bills on time."