(May 22, 2010) If you haven’t already, you’re about to get a nasty shock when you open your electricity bill.

New time-of-use charges (based on smart meter readings) coupled with an Ontario Energy Board (OEB) increase of $5.78 for Horizon customers (based on average usage and HST) are being loaded onto bills this spring.

“We all know electricity prices are going up,” said Shelley Parker, acting director of customer services at Horizon Utilities.

“The thing we are doing is to teach customers how to change their energy practices … if you do change habits, your bill should not change too much.”

Horizon did cut its own distribution rate this year by $2 a month for the average customer.

So far, Horizon Utilities has installed 99 per cent of its smart meters although not all are online yet.

It’s costing the utility about $140 to install a smart meter at a home –that works out to about a $3.2-million project.

It’s part of a provincial program which is using smart meters as a way to promote energy conservation (smartmetersontario.ca).

The government is trying to encourage residential consumers to use electricity at off-peak times when commercial usage is lower.

It argues that customers will save money if they turn on their appliances after 9 p.m., for example.

Horizon Utilities suggests that many of its customers will have similar bills.

However, it does acknowledge some customers in Hamilton and St. Catharines may see an increase if they do not adjust their usage patterns to time-of-use peaks.

This is on top of expected rate hikes on Nov. 1 when the OEB is expected to raise electricity rates again to offset the costs of new green technologies and infrastructure and other costs.

In addition, Ontario Power Generation has applied to the OEB for a $2.75 a month rate increase for two years for all Ontario residents. If approved, the new rate would start in January 2011.

Lawrence Solomon, executive director of Energy Probe, said Ontario consumers should brace themselves — he expects rates will soon double or even triple due to a “misguided attempt to stop climate change.”

He argues rates are rising because the government is buying wind and solar power at twice to 10 times market value, investing in nuclear while “scrapping perfectly good coal plants.”

“Ontario is following the path of the U.K., where power rates climbed rapidly to combat a presumed climate change,” said Solomon. “As a result, millions were thrown into what is known there as ‘fuel poverty,’ making them eligible for relief.”

And Tom Cooper, director of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, points out that the new smart meters do not help low-income families who might live in an apartment building equipped with old appliances, an old furnace or old windows.

“We know anecdotally that low-income residents are being impacted by the higher rates,” he said.

He said the HST, in effect on July 1, compounds the impact.

Alicia Johnston, a spokesperson for Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, said the government is introducing a new energy, property and sales tax credit to help low- and middle-income families adjust to the harmonized sales tax (HST) and the increase in costs such as electricity.

Eligibility for the credit — a maximum of $900 a year for non-seniors and $1,025 for seniors — will be determined when income taxes are filed. Cheques will then be issued quarterly. The program starts next year.