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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
Eves: Hydro One not for sale
The Ontario government has zapped plans for what was set to be the largest privatization in Canadian history.
Premier Ernie Eves has decided to keep controlling interest in Hydro One, the provincially owned electricity transmission company that has been the centre of a political storm for weeks.
"The government has decided it’s not going to part with control of Hydro One," Eves told reporters after a three-hour cabinet meeting yesterday.
Eves pulls switch on Hydro One sale
Ontario Premier Ernie Eves bowed to public pressure yesterday and will keep Hydro One in public hands. Eves said the province will either sell some of the utility’s shares, establish a public-private partnership, or set up an income trust to bring "private-sector discipline" to the utility. He said a decision will be made by the next election.
But, unlike a month ago, Eves said the total $5.5 billion sale of Hydro One isn’t an option anymore.
Eves kills Hydro One share sale
TORONTO — Ontario Premier Ernie Eves killed a key initiative of his predecessor Mike Harris with the announcement yesterday that the Tories would not turn over control of Hydro One to the private sector through a share offering on the stock market.
Altered Hydro One IPO not big on Bay Street
The Ontario government’s plan to privatize only half of Hydro One will be a tough sell on Bay Street because investors are worried about political interference in the new company, investors and investment bankers said yesterday.
"If they provide full freedom to private partners this will work," said one large institutional investor. "If they are not willing to do that, we wouldn’t be interested."
Businesses face hydro hike
Many Ontario businesses will be hit with an extra charge for electricity that will effectively double the posted market price for power during peak demand periods, says the agency that runs Ontario’s new electricity market.
The information came to light as Ontario set a new record for electricity demand yesterday, brought on by the summer heat.
To cope with the heavy demand, Ontario had to import 10 per cent of its electricity needs at prices up to 50 times the price consumers were accustomed to paying under the old regulated market system.
Hydro One fires Clitheroe, alleges abuse of perks
Eleanor Clitheroe [left] was fired as president and chief executive of Hydro One Inc. yesterday for alleged abuse of executive perks that included spending $330,000 of company funds on limousines for her nanny and children, according to Glen Wright, the utility’s interim chairman.
Firing raises questions about future of utility
The future of Hydro One Inc. became even more cloudy yesterday with the firing of Eleanor Clitheroe.
The utility, one of the largest in North America, has endured a series of upheavals in the past two months. Since June, Hydro One’s entire board of directors has quit, its chief executive officer, Ms. Clitheroe, has been fired and its initial public offering has been scrapped.
The utility will be run by co-CEOs until the board can find another chief executive, all while the company defends itself in a lawsuit from its former CEO.
Part Two: Conspiracy of chances
Barrett Chute’s generating turbines, at the end of the ‘power canal’ shown at centre, could not pass water fast enough on June 23. The spillway, shown on the right behind a dam, was opened like a safety valve to relieve pressure on the turbines.
– Ottawa Citizen
How the provincial hydroelectric utility responds to demands for power is in the midst of a revolution. If 1906 was the beginning of life for public hydro in Ontario, then 1995 was the beginning of the end.
Conspiracy of chances
The brothers walked ahead, leading their parents up the rocks of High Falls. On the steamy June 23 afternoon, the first Sunday of summer, the two boys – Aaron, 7, and Adam, 9 – were keen to wade in the shallow pools along a dammed channel of the Madawaska River near Calabogie.
Hydro prices pain in purse
The province’s electricity market opened for competition May 1 and since then net power prices have increased 15 per cent, says industry watchdog Energy Probe.
High summer prices have lingered into September and the Independent Electricity Market Operator, which operates the deregulated market, sees no immediate relief.
The market operator predicts continued tight power supplies with upward pressure on prices.
Energy Probe 