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Getting Zapped: Ontario electricity prices increasing faster than anywhere else
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Category Archives: Reforming Ontario’s Electrical Generation Sector
Power Crunch
When Mike Harris’s Progressive Conservative government announced plans to open the province’s power market to private competition, it looked like the moment Mike Dupuis had spent his entire life waiting for.
Electricity market to be open by May, 2002
Energy Minister Jim Wilson says Ontario’s electricity market will be opened to competition in a year – or about 18 months later than planned – and that consumers should be better off.
But some electricity-industry watchers say the further delay hints that the province lacks resolve. And the union representing Toronto Hydro workers vows to campaign against electricity competition.
Wilson has said a competitive market will attract investors who will build new generators and offer consumers better choices.
Harris backs power sales to U.S.
Ontario should consider building new power plants and sell output to an energy-hungry United States, Premier Mike Harris said yesterday.
But the idea revealed in the Legislature yesterday raised fears among critics that an expanded energy market would send Canadian rates soaring.
The Tory premier said he and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien discussed such a scheme after Chrétien met with U.S. President George W. Bush during last month’s Summit of the Americas.
Deal sparks controversy
Up to 70 per cent of the electricity from the newly privatized Bruce nuclear generating plant is destined for big Ontario industries, says the firm holding the lease on the facility.
Meanwhile, critics of the deal say the private lease could break Ontario’s electricity market wide open, forcing the province to open its power grid to U.S. buyers, and driving prices higher.
Watchdog blasts Ontario over rebate
Toronto – Ontario consumers may be unwittingly signing away a valuable electricity-price rebate to private utility companies, the head of an energy watchdog group says.
The market power mitigation rebate was created in 1999 to offset a potential rise in power prices once Ontario’s electricity market is opened to competition next spring.
Sales representatives from private electricity-marketing companies have been knocking on doors in Ontario for months, asking homeowners to sign on for a fixed electricity rate when the market opens.
Finding reason for hydro hike wasn't easy
The electricity you use this month will cost you 8 per cent more, thanks to an increase imposed by the Ontario government to cover rising debt charges.
The extra cost is $7.35 a month, or about $90 a year, for the average household that consumes 1,000 kilowatt hours of power a month.
With power rates unchanged since 1993, you might expect the government to make an effort to tell customers what’s behind the June 1 increase.
Think again.
Consumer rebates end up in utilities' hands
The province’s failure to educate the public on the changing electricity landscape is costing homeowners a valuable rebate, says the head of an energy watchdog group.
By signing up with private utility companies, consumers have been unwittingly signing away their rights to the "market power mitigation rebate" – worth an average of $130, says Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe.
Status Report on Ontario's Electricity Reforms
Successes So Far
- Reasonably solid legislative foundation
- Slow but solid progress commissioning a good physical wholesale market: on track for November
- Promotion of competition and price protection through the Market Power Mitigation Agreement (MPMA)
- Some (albeit shallow) “decontrol” achieved
Challenge: Rising publicly-backed debt/direct taxpayer losses
Expanding energy
After originally setting the year 2000 as its target, Ontario – Canada’s most power-hungry province – claims it will be ready for an electricity market open to competition, and market prices, by May 2002. What impact will this have on retailers?
Nuclear Surprise
On the windswept eastern shores of Lake Huron, the orange-coloured bulk of the world’s largest nuclear power station rises starkly against clear blue sky and the green trees that blanket the area. It’s a huge site, ringed by a security fence punctuated by motion detectors. You’d have to be a high-jumping deer to get in here. Within view, three of them have done just that, nibbling grass contentedly on the plant side of the steel mesh. Up close, the two main buildings look like a couple of Soviet-era apartment blocks. Continue reading
Energy Probe 