John Spears
Toronto Star
August 19, 2002

While you’re at it, grab a calculator, a pencil and paper and perhaps a mug of coffee, because it may take you a while to figure out whether you’re paying what you’re supposed to.

That’s because the new bills don’t tell you the rate you’re being charged for energy.

And for 50,000 households in Toronto that formerly had flat rate water heaters, the bills are doubly complex. That’s because they list the number of kilowatt hours used in two different places on the bill, without adding them into a total.

The issue came to light after a query from a Star reader.

The new bills break down the charges for electricity into separate elements. They show how much is charged for long distance electricity transmission, how much for local distribution, how much for the special charge to pay off the old Ontario Hydro debt, and so on.

The bill also shows who supplies the customer’s energy. Some customers have a fixed-price contract with a retailer; others buy through the utility at a floating market rate.

But the new bills don’t show the rate being charged.

Blair Peberdy, vice-president of Toronto Hydro, said in an interview that the Ontario Energy Board (OEB), which sets the rules for the new market, doesn’t require that information to be put on the bill.

"The OEB said: ‘These are the ‘must-haves’ on the bill,’ and the rate for the retailers was something that wasn’t mandated," he said

Peberdy said the array of rates offered by retailers made the task difficult for billing systems: One retailer has 16 rates in the marketplace.

Enersource Hydro Mississauga has also decided to keep the retailers’ energy rates off the bill for now.

Bill Hawkins of the Electricity Distributors Association, which represent local utilities, said it is up to the retailer to supply the utility with the rate information, and many supply only a final charge. No one at the OEB was available who could explain why retail rates aren’t required on bills.

Toronto Hydro blurs things one step further for 50,000 customers who used to have flat rate water heaters. Electricity for those heaters doesn’t run through the meter, so Toronto Hydro now applies a standard estimate of the power they use.

But the power used by the water heater is shown separately from the power used by the rest of the house.

So to figure what rate you’re paying, you’d have to add the two figures together, then divide that into the total charge.

Here’s how it works out on one customer’s bill:

Add 778.407 kilowatt hours (for the water heater) plus 902.712 kilowatt hours (for the rest of the house.)

The total is 1,681.119 kilowatt hours.

Then divide that total into the energy charge of $97.34.

The total is 5.79 cents a kilowatt hour.

Simple, eh?