Keeping your summer – and budget – cool
By Lethbridge Herald on June 14, 2025.
Nathan Neudorf
Lethbridge East MLA
Summer in Alberta is one of the best times of the year, and a great opportunity to make sure that your costs aren’t rising with the warmer temperatures.
As air conditioning is becoming increasingly more common in homes across both our city and province, summer energy use is rising. In fact, we nearly matched our all-time winter peak for demand last July and when demand spikes, it puts pressure on prices — and on family budgets.
While our government is actively working on many affordability measures – including a tax cut that will save families up to $1,500 – there are also small changes each of us can make at the household level to keep power bills as low as possible.
Whether you live in a Lethbridge bungalow, rent an apartment downtown, or are in a farmhouse outside the city, simple tips like using a fan instead of air conditioning when possible, drying clothes on the line, and closing blinds during the hottest hours of the day can make all the difference.
Consider limiting oven use, putting heat control film or shades on your windows. And if you do use air conditioning, regular servicing — just like you would for your furnace — helps to improve its efficiency.
On the government end, in my capacity as Minister of Affordability and Utilities, I’ve been working hard to address the affordability and reliability of the power grid so that everyone in Lethbridge-East and across the province can keep more of their hard-earned dollars and make the best financial decisions for them and their families.
The changes we’ve made so far are already making a difference. The default electricity rate has dropped 62 per cent from its peak. Albertans also have access to more than 50 competitive retailers, and by switching to a competitive fixed or variable contract, could save hundreds of dollars each year.
This past session, we also passed the Energy and Utilities Statutes Amendment Act, 2025, which makes critical updates to transmission policies to protect Albertans from rising transmission costs moving forward, and ensuring when new transmission is needed, ratepayers are not burdened with the full cost of new transmission lines needing to be built.
If you want to explore your electricity options, visit ucahelps.alberta.ca or call the Utilities consumer Advocate (UCA) at 310-4822.
By making smart personal choices and continuing to push for system-wide improvements, we’re working together to build a stronger, more affordable Alberta — one step at a time.
12-11
How very thoughtful of the Affordability Minister to suggest how to stretch the family budget with cooking and cooling ideas to assist Albertans over the course of a hot summer.
Where exactly was his affordability mentality when this government decided to increase the co-pay on prescriptions for seniors?
Where was the minister’s concern for tax-payer household budgets when quietly this past Friday this government issued a press release stating Albertans 65 years and older will begin paying out of pocket for COVID vaccinations this fall?
The right to health is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, among other international instruments.
In reality, the minister appears to NOT BE “working together” with Albertans to make it “more affordable” to for seniors to live in this province.
In the wake of the dismantling of health care in this province, I am not aware of ANY “system wide improvements”. The exception to this would be a full public inquiry into the health care scandal now under investigation.
Shame, Mr. Neudorf. Shame on you.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-health/about-right-health-and-human-rights
Ya, turn on a fan. The number of 30C + days has tripled in Lethbridge over the last generation due to ghg emissions from burning fossil fuels – which the Government is doing everything in its power to increase. Just turn on a fan, everything will be fine.
Maybe our MLA could mention upgrading windows, heat pumps, building to a higher standard in new homes, lowering energy costs with solar panels … maybe even acknowledge climate change as a risk?
When can we expect your report on scaling back drug and vision-care coverage for seniors by your government?
The lady is wacko, she is part of the fringe now, completely wacko, Neudorf you are a part of the wacko fringe now, shame, shame.
“Danielle Smith defends policy requiring Albertans to pay out of pocket for COVID vaccines.”
How touching that the Utilities Minister who has given us some of the highest electricity prices in Canada, except for the Arctic territories, is now suggesting ways you can cut back on using electricity. Perhaps he could lift the de facto ban on the cheapest forms of electricity, solar and wind, he instituted in Alberta instead. We’d welcome back the associated jobs as well.
I’m not surprised Mr. Neudorf’s cooling suggestions didn’t include one of the most effective solutions, heat pumps. While cheaper to run for home cooling than a traditional air conditioner in the summer months, they have what Mr. Neudorf no doubt considers to be an undesirable side effect: they save you money on your natural gas bill in the winter.
Like other provinces, he could support increasing your home’s energy efficiency with provincial programs, so you could stay cooler in the summer. Better insulation, doors and windows could be encouraged by such a program. This would, however, cut down on natural gas use (or oil, or propane) for heating in the winter, a result that is not allowed here in Alberta.
Residential solar subsidies could help residents generate their own electricity, but fossil-fuel generated electricity from giant gas plants is the only government-subsidized power source financed by our Utilities Minister.
So, if you can’t afford electricity, by all means, black out your windows with heat control film. After all, it’s a petroleum product.