Ontario Rebates May Disappoint Ratepayers

TORONTO -- Electricity users counting on a rebate from Ontario Power Generation should lower their expectations about how big it will be, says Tom Adams, executive director at Energy Probe.

In its latest earnings statement, OPG says it has set aside about 1.8 cents a kilowatt hour on a portion of its output to refund customers. OPG must refund revenue it collects under a formula triggered when the average price for electricity exceeds 3.8 cents a kilowatt hour. But Adams notes that the refund is based only on a portion of a customer's consumption, since other companies provide some of the power on the Ontario grid.

How big the portion might be is now being debated before the Ontario Energy Board but Adams says it could be less than 60 per cent. If that were the case, a typical consumer might get a rebate of $11 a month, instead of $18 based on the full amount of consumption.

Many customers who have signed fixed-price contracts with electricity retailers — nearly one in four Ontario customers — won't get the rebate at all. Most such contracts assign the OPG rebate to the retailer.

Source: The Toronto Star