Staff
Fort Frances Power Corp. customers will see a noticeable jump in their bills starting next month, with the most recent change being a 2.5 percent increase to electricity distribution rates announced by the Ontario Energy Board on Tuesday.
According to a table provided by the OEB of estimated impacts on residential consumers’ bills, the delivery charge on monthly bills will rise from $24.69 to $25.30 (2.5 percent, or $0.61).
As a local distribution company, the FFPC typically performs an annual review of their rates to see if certain rate components have been over collected or under collected, and makes an annual application to the OEB for an adjustment to the delivery charge.
Distribution companies are the collection agency for all parties that get paid their fraction of an electricity bill.
But that increase is only one of several which also will kick in starting in May.
Earlier this month, the OEB announced the commodity price of electricity will be going up. As the Ontario generation supply mix is changing (i.e. phasing out coal and replacing it with more expensive alternatives), the overall cost to generate electricity is increasing.
According to the same table mentioned above, the cost of electricity on that typical residential bill is estimated to increase from $48.26 to $56.40 (16.9 percent increase).
This is a semi-annual rate adjustment the OEB makes each May and November.
Meanwhile the regulatory charge is expected to go up from $5.66 to $6—a change of six percent.
Correspondingly, the GST
applied to that estimated subtotal increases from $4.12 to $4.57.
The debt retirement charge will remain the same at $3.76.
Adding all of this up, the estimated residential household bill for average FFPC customers (based on usage of 800 kWh per month) is estimated to go up from $86.49 to $96.03—a change of $9.54 or 11 percent.
But after factoring in the power agreement credit, that brings down the bill by about $8 (based on a credit of $0.1 per kWh and usage of 800 kWh per month) to $88.03.
After July 1, the FFPC will have to start charging the 13 percent HST, replacing the current GST (five percent).
The table of estimated bill impacts on residential consumers’ bills is available at www.oeb.gov.on.ca/OEB/_Documents/2010EDR/bill_impacts_2010.pdf.
