By Kristy Moffitt
Low-income customers are going to be the hardest hit when their electricity bill rises on April 1.
Bills will be increasing by 6.1 per cent, which works out to an average increase of $51.13 for the average family per year.
“Low-income families pay the highest portion of their incomes to electricity already.
This can mean having to choose between eating and heating. We don’t see either of these things as a luxury,” says Keith Stewart of the Low Income Energy Network (LIEN).
LIEN researches energy policies and alternatives in order to lessen the blow of hydro price increases on low-income consumers.
Electricity bills will be rising in two different ways.
The actual cost of electricity is rising, from 4.7 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour.
This decision, a result of government policy, was approved by the Ontario Energy Board earlier this month.
“We needed to ensure that the prices consumers see better reflect the real cost of producing electricity,” says Donna Garant, a spokesperson for the Board.
The second way bills will be increasing is in the cost of actually delivering electricity from the generator, to the distributor, and onto the customer.
Various distribution companies across the province applied for this delivery rate increase at the beginning of the year, and it will take effect April 1 as well.
Hydro Ottawa has raised the cost of distribution 3.8 per cent, and it insists this is for conservation reasons.
Garant says the board did consider the impact price increases would have on low-income consumers, but says social policy is really up to the government.
“One thing we did to protect consumers was to lower the cost of electricity in the winter, when people use more power,” she says.
The current two-tier pricing system allows for consumers to pay a lower price for the first 750 kilowatt hours of electricity they use, and a higher price for everything above that.
The board maintained the two-tier system, but changed the lower price threshold for the winter months to the first 1,000 kilowatt hours.
A spokesperson for Hydro Ottawa says they are just going along with the government’s conservation plan.
If consumers do small things, like change as little as two light bulbs in the home to an energy efficient brand, the increase will be taken care of in the savings you will receive.
Tom Adams, executive director of the energy watchdog organization Energy Probe, says low-income consumers are the hardest hit.
This is because they are most likely to live in the least energy efficient homes, use the most electricity, and have the most expensive heating system – electric heat.
“They can’t afford to switch to gas, which is better. In fact most of them are tenants, so they have no say over what kind of energy source they use,” says Adams.
Stewart says the problem is that low-income consumers don’t have the money to spend on conservation measures.
“The government is telling them to buy energy efficient appliances, or change to gas heating. When you can’t even afford to pay your bill, you certainly can’t afford to do things like that.”
LIEN has developed a program that will make it easier for low-income consumers to become more energy-efficient at the lowest possible cost.
The program includes education on how to save and conserve, and suggestions that carry little or not cost to the consumer.
LIEN’S program would have the distribution company working with low-income customers to improve the efficiency of their homes.
It includes measures like weatherization and draft proofing, the use of compact fluorescent light bulbs, providing clothes lines and clothes pins for drying, and providing low- flow shower heads.
The distribution company would be largely responsible for implementing this conservation plan.
A copy of LIEN’s energy conservation plan can be obtained on their web site, at www.acto.ca.