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Getting Zapped: Ontario electricity prices increasing faster than anywhere else
Read Our Report On Wind Subsidies in Ontario
Category Archives: Reforming Ontario’s Electrical Generation Sector
Horizon seeks hefty hike
Electricity in Hamilton and St. Catharines is about to get more expensive.
Horizon Utilities, which distributes power in the two cities, is asking the provincial regulator to increase the distribution charge for power by almost 12 per cent effective January. And the utility says there will need to more increases in the future.
At the same time, provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath has started a campaign to cut bills by getting the provincial government to remove its portion of the new Harmonized Sales Tax.
A Liberal power surge: Blizzard
The two biggest issues in next year’s election will be the HST and the price of electricity.
As consumers open their hydro bills this month, they’re getting sticker shock from the extra 8% the HST has added.
Last week, both Opposition parties were hammering at the Liberals for other sneaky costs that have been quietly added to their already ballooning bills.
Andrea Horwath and the New Democrats were especially effective.
Horizon seeks hefty hike
Horizon Utilities, which distributes power in the two cities, is asking the provincial regulator to increase the distribution charge for power by almost 12 per cent effective January. And the utility says there will need to more increases in the future.
At the same time, provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath has started a campaign to cut bills by getting the provincial government to remove its portion of the new Harmonized Sales Tax.
Zap! Your hydro bill's going up
The Ontario Energy Board thinks you’re not paying enough for hydro so it’s yanking another $60 out of your wallet.
Ontario hydro ratepayers — already hammered by the HST, time-of-use pricing and rate hikes — will pay an added $240 million a year, the Ontario NDP says.
Officials at the provincial crown agency — whose salaries are paid for through hydro bills — decided earlier this year that utilities should be able to boost their rate of return to 9.85% from 8.39%.
Are you frying your eggs at 4 a.m. yet?
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is under fire for forcing smart meters onto the province’s electricity customers.
The meters make no economic sense for consumers, critics point out, costing consumers far more than can ever be offset through lower power bills.
The meters, in fact, make perfect sense when understood from Mr. McGuinty’s viewpoint, despite a total price tag estimated to run as high as $10-billion.
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Breaking up Ontario's Hydro's Monopoly
Energy Probe is a well-respected public interest and research group that in 1975 gained national exposure with its disclosures about radiation contamination in Port Hope, Ontario. It has now taken on the monolithic bureaucracy of Ontario Hydro. This book is a pithy addition to the on-going campaign to bring this Frankenstein of the Ontario government’s creation under control. Continue reading
Toronto is blackout city: Sources
Investing in the future: Toronto Hydro Corporation, 2007 Annual Report
Statistical analyses of exceptional events: the Italian experiences
Getting Out the Good News, Hydro One
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Hidden taxes hurt democracy
Letter to the Toronto Star editor:
Re: "Toronto’s out-of-sight Hydro kitty," March 30, 2002.
Electricity switch costly for many
Nearly a million Ontario electricity consumers have recently signed expensive long-term contracts to buy power, often from high-pressure door-to-door marketers and at fixed rates more than a third higher than likely market levels. The contracts take effect when Ontario’s electricity market opens for competition on May 1 and have prompted controversy.
Cost of electricity 4 cents an hour
Four cents and change: That’s what you’re paying for a kilowatt hour of electricity today if you’re a householder in Ontario.
And that’s the price to compare with the rates of electricity retailers, who are offering fixed rate contracts at up to 5.95 cents a kilowatt hour for a five-year deal.
The two men most closely involved with opening Ontario’s electricity market to competition agree the current cost of power is a little over 4 cents a kilowatt hour.
Energy Probe 