Hydro rebate to be slightly higher

Fort Frances Power Corp. customers will get a pleasant surprise when they open their next hydro bill and see a rebate for benefits realized in 2005 under the historical power agreement with the mill.
“It’s more this year than in previous years,” FFPC CEO and president Jim Kibiuk said Wednesday afternoon.
“That has to do with the increased value in the price of electricity in Ontario. So as the price of electricity goes up, the value of the rebate increases,” he noted.
“With commodity pricing being higher in 2005 than 2004, the rebate is more,” he added. “It’s a direct reflection of the electricity market.”
The rebate is calculated at a project rate of .95 cents per kilowatt hour (plus GST) based on the uplifted kW/h consumed by all Standard Supply Service Customers (residential and commercial) between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2005.
The average rebate for a Fort Frances home consuming 1,000 kW/h per month will be about $125 while that same customer last year saw a rebate around $85, said Kibiuk.
The average rebate for a business consuming 3,500 kW/h per month will be roughly $445.
The rebate will be applied to FFPC customers’ accounts this month—and appear as a credit on their next hydro bill.
Kibiuk noted the rebate is only for FFPC customers, and stems from historical power agreement between the town and the mill.
He added the amount of the rebate is “price of power driven,” meaning the more the price of power goes up, the greater the value of the historical power agreement becomes.
Fort Frances consumers enrolled with electricity retailers are not eligible to receive the power agreement credit and rebate.
This is the second rebate for FFPC customers since the new year began. They also received a rebate in early January called the Ontario Price Credit.
This was a one-time rebate to customers for the period of April 1, 2004 to March 31, 2005—the period of time before the implementation of the province’s regulated price plan.
That credit was a result of lower-than-expected electricity prices due largely to the moderate weather during the summer of 2004.
The amount of the customers’ credits was based on the amount they paid for their electricity consumption during the period from April 1, 2004 to March 31, 2005.
Local homeowners saw a rebate of roughly $60.