City electric rates going up
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on December 16, 2021.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
Lethbridge city council on Tuesday unanimously approved second and third reading of the Electric Distribution Tariff bylaw which sets the rates for customers receiving services from the City of Lethbridge Electric Utility.
What this means for residents is they can expect to see an increase in electricity charges.
According to the submission given to council, the tariff covers costs for the wired services that connect customers to electrical services but it doesn’t cover costs associated with the energy they use.
“The upshot of the bylaw is that there will be an average increase for residential customers of about $3 per month for an average residential customer using 750 kilowatt hours per month,” acting mayor Rajko Dodic told council.
The rates will go up about 2.43 per cent for commercial customers and slightly less at 2.37 for industrial users, Dodic said.
There are two main components of the traffic that recover the costs of providing infrastructure, those being transmission access fees and distribution access fees.
The transmission access fees are collected by the city’s electric utility from customers and “flowed through” to the Alberta Electric System Operator to cover the costs of Alberta’s transmission system. That system is required to connect generation sources to distribution systems in Alberta.
Those access fees are set by AESO and approved by the Alberta Utilities Commission.
Those feels are going to increase by 7.5 per cent in 2022.
Distribution access fees are collected from electricity customers to cover costs of the electrical distribution system infrastructure in Lethbridge which provides connection to all customers from the transmission system to the point of use.
Those fees are going to increase by one per cent in 2022.
The reason for the increase, according to the submission to council, is that the electrical consumption is remaining flat with consumption only expected to increase by one per cent based on 2021 results.
Consumption is being affected by COVID and while revenue is staying flat, expenses are rising as the city electric network grows to meet the needs of new customers.
However, there won’t be a change to the local access fee the City charges to customers in 2022. That fee will remain at 15.5 per cent.
First reading was given on Nov. 30.
“The bylaw doesn’t actually cover the costs of electricity used by customers,” acting mayor Rajko Dodic told council.
“That’s done by the supplier that has been contracted by the user or the city who is the default supplier absent any third party agreements with a supplier. What it does is deals with establishing the electric distribution tariff. It’s done annually,” Dodic said.
“The bylaw covers the costs for wire service, essentially the costs associated in getting electricity to customers through the transmission infrastructure which is owned by the city,” he said.
“These two tariff items appear on utility statements as well as the local access fee,” he said.
Deputy mayor Belinda Crowson asked the city manager designate for the reason behind the increase and if there was a way to keep it at zero.
She was told the average increase of one per cent is due to things including COVID which has “changed the distribution pattern, the amount of demand on our system and while that’s remained flat, new customers have come in whose needs require infrastructure to meet their needs.
So costs continue to come in but revenue remains flat, Crowson was told.
She was told costs have been cut where possible and that other communities are feeling the same pressures.
“Every utility across the province is experiencing the same kind of demands, the same kind of issues as we are right now.”
The city is looking at different solutions of handling the integration of electric vehicles into the city, Crowson was told in response to a question.
The city is partnering with universities and consultants to minimize the costs of the build-up of infrastructure to handle electric vehicles.
“We’re assessing what our current needs are and looking at future innovative ways to be able to handle what those needs are in the future.”
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My last bill was for $17 consumption cost, but the total bill was $123.00
the biggest ongoing scam in alberta are our energy rates. while we can thank klein for the original rip off, we can thank every govt since for perpetuating the robbery. not surprising, as throughout the land we just keep going back and forth from one corrupt, lying lot to the other, and back again.
indeed, as alluded to by citi, we are led to believe we pay 6 cents/kwh for electric, and roughly 2-4 dollars per gj for nat’l gas…lol if that is what anyone believes. less than 2 gj of gas cost me over 100 dollars, and as much as 600 kwh of electric cost over 100 dollars. a great deal…so long as you are an energy company operating in alberta.
Biff said: “The biggest ongoing scam in alberta are our energy rates”.
With a possible exception in Quebec, all those extra fees are in every province.
Perhaps there is confusion because some provinces don’t show those fees on the bill, but rather bundle them in the total. For example, if you use $50 a month of electricity/gas anywhere in Canada, the actual bill total will be a lot higher. Granted, the fee cost probably varies a bit between provinces, but I doubt it would be significantly different.
Wow, okay. But our paycheques are staying the same though, right? Typical city BS, complete with a full-page excuse on why someone, somewhere wants to increase profits without adding anything useful to the already strained infrastructure. Looking good as usual, Lethbridge!
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