Generating Bullshit

Lets see Ontario’s Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli says the AVERAGE household will pay an extra $12 monthly for electricity next year and that this will bring the monthly bill to $167 from the current $125 for a household using 800 kilowatt hours. He goes on to say that this will be a SAVING of what it could have been under the previous plan and that the AVERAGE annual residential increase over the next 20 years will be 2.8 per cent, down from a projected 3.4 per cent. This according to the Star.
Other reports say
A new Long-Term Energy Plan says the average monthly residential bill of $125 will rise to $178 within five years, a 42% hike. Hydro bills are expected to dip slightly in 2019 to $177 a month, and then rise again until 2022 when they’ll hit $193 a month. A second price decrease is forecast for 2023-24 and then the trend for prices is onward and upward for the foreseeable future. This from the Sun
Then there is CTV who say
Ontario electricity consumers can expect their bills to jump almost 50 per cent in the next three years under the new long-term energy plan unveiled Monday by Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli. However, Chiarelli said the average homeowner will pay about $100 a year less than they would have if the Liberals hadn't (changed their plan)

I don’t know about you but it seems to me that both the minister and the media need both some lesson on disseminating factual material and some math lessons here. I dont know where the press got all their figures from other than from the ministers rather vague and self-serving statement, I did go looking for a press release but did not find such, it could be all tucked away in the PDF of the `plan`but I was not about to wade through all that at this time. Either way this is all a crock of shit!

First of all the term the average household is so totally meaningless that it can only be described as deliberately misleading. Judging from my monthly bill there must be a lot of `householders` who are rarely home and eat out a lot, I know we out here in the boonies have to pump our own water which adds a little to the bill, but we do cook with propane which should balance things out, and it would be really nice to see a bill below about $170. Of course our `cost of electricity is less than half of that but the delivery, other charges and TAX quickly fix that!
Secondly a reduction of the estimated future cost is NOT a saving its simply a POSSIBLE reduced future cost. And my math says that an average rise of 2.8% per year on a bill of $125 would bring it to $128.50 not $167 and over 5 years to $142.50 not $178 so either there is a great deal of creative accounting going on here or hydro prices will drop dramatically around 2020. How gullible do they think we are.
Frankly the press has done a terrible job of reporting this and the facts are seemingly not permitted to interfere with a good story and so without a lot more digging who can really say what the Ontario government is predicting, but one would think that if their plan is so good they would make it more readily available rather than the pages of BS and spin that is currently on the Ministry of Energy’s web site 


So remember when you see your hydro bill increase next year you are saving money as you empty your wallet.