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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
UK mulls extending loan to crisis-hit nuclear firm
LONDON — The U.K. government was considering this week whether to extend its emergency loan to stricken nuclear firm British Energy for a second time as a four-week countdown began to deciding the company’s future.
A 650 million-pound ($1.02 billion) state-bailout loan to the producer of a fifth of Britain’s power is due to expire on November 29.
Privatised British Energy cannot make money at current electricity prices, which have dropped below its cost of production after market reforms exposed industry overcapacity.
Tories' nuke catch-22
Anxiety over ongoing expansion efforts at the Bruce nuclear facility is running high. Locals were thrown another curve this week when Energy Minister John Baird suggested that troubled reactors at the facility could be pressed into action to help fill any energy gaps facing the province in the future. Baird tossed out the Bruce option as it became apparent Monday that four reactors at Ontario Power Generation’s Pickering plant, which generates most of the province’s electricity, will not be up and running for months to come – if ever.
Ontario to soothe electricity customers
Premier Ernie Eves is expected to announce tomorrow a package to protect Ontario consumers from soaring electricity prices in response to the unprecedented political pressure his government is feeling on the issue.
The Premier told the legislature yesterday that the government also will protect people who risk having their power cut off because they cannot afford to pay the increases in their bills.
Hydro rebates to top $700M
Ontario Hydro consumers will get about $700 million in rebates from the provincial government to offset electricity costs that soared over the summer.
Premier Ernie Eves yesterday announced a nine-point plan that calls for rebates for consumers of $75 before the end of the year and more as a credit on their hydro bills next year, and a rate freeze that will last until 2006.
Eves freezes power prices
Ontario electricity consumers will get their power at the frozen rate of 4.3 cents a kilowatt hour, and can look for rebates of up to $100 on average under a major policy reversal announced yesterday by Premier Ernie Eves.
The new scheme could end up costing billions of dollars, critics warned. However, Mr. Eves insisted the costs will be minimal.
Reporters upset with crowded site for hydro session
When Ernie Eves dropped in for a choreographed, election-style visit with a Mississauga family to announce a freeze on electricity prices, the goal was to portray the Ontario Premier as a politician with a common touch.
Instead, the episode may one day serve as the basis for a public relations textbook titled 101 Ways to Ruin a Press Conference. The ham-fisted effort has left reporters angry and PR experts scratching their heads.
First, there was the ill-chosen venue.
Repetition of California called unlikely
Ontario’s solution looks a lot like the beginning of California’s problem.
In Ontario this week, Premier Ernie Eves tried to prevent an energy crisis with a rate freeze. Four years ago, California’s energy crisis began with just such a rate freeze, which set off a chain reaction that led to blackouts across the state, bankruptcies of giant utilities and a huge government deficit.
Could the same thing happen north of the border? Some people think so.
Outcry in Ontario over energy prices
Across much of North America this fall, electricity bills are being held in check by a slack economy and intense competition among producers. But not in Ontario, where politicians are scrambling to quell a public outcry over soaring power prices.
Six months after deregulating its power market in hopes of promoting competition and encouraging investment in new capacity, the government of Ontario, Canada’s most populous and industrialized province, backtracked late Monday and said it would freeze retail electricity rates for the next four years.
Study finds power rebate will cost Ontario dearly
The Ontario government will have to raise taxes or cut spending by more than $800-million to pay for its planned rebate to power customers, a new analysis shows.
Premier Ernie Eves has said the government’s plan to freeze power prices to 2006 and rebate consumers retroactively will be covered from money set aside by Ontario Power Generation in a consumer-protection fund. He has insisted that taxpayers will not be on the hook for the rebate.
Focus Ontario
On Saturday, Nov. 16, Energy Probe‘s Tom Adams joined Guy Giorno, former Chief of Staff and counsel to Mike Harris, to take a closer look at recent events in Ontario’s tumultuous energy market on Global-TV’s Focus Ontario program.
The following is a transcript of this discussion.
VOICEOVER: From Global News, this is Focus Ontario with Graham Richardson.
Energy Probe 