Rural Vs Urban Hydro Delivery Rates

With the current focus upon Hydro rates initially brought on by a Global News report on the difficulty many residents of my own riding of Bruce-Grey are having in paying their bills I thought I would look closer at the difference costs between rural and urban hydro costs..
To clearly represent the facts I have created a spread sheet showing those costs based upon Hydro Ones published “Residential Delivery Costs”. These figures only show those details for customers served directly by Hydro One, I believe that many city folk served by their own Hydro Utility’s will in fact be receiving their electricity at a lower price at the door than shown here for high and medium density customers.

Residential Delivery Costs as per Hydro One

For “Residential – Low Density.” the distribution service charge is automatically reduced by $31.50 The hydro One chart shows the rate AFTER the discount, the rate would otherwise be $74.82

	Delivery Rates2	Kw per month	Urban High Density	Medium Density	Low Density
	Distribution service charge  ($ / month) inc 31.50 disc for LD)		22.86	30.88	43.32
	Distribution volume charge (metered usage - ¢ / kWh)		1.6	2.98	4.27
	Transmission connection charge (adjusted usage - ¢ / kWh)		0.49	o.48	0.46
	Transmission network charge (adjusted usage - ¢/ kWh)		0.69	0.68	0.65
	Smart metering entity charge3 ($ / month)		0.79	0.79	0.79
	Adjustment Factor		1.057	1.076	1.105
	The Calculations for 1000 Kwh / Month
	Total per Kwh charges -cents/Kwh		2.78	3.66	5.38
	Total fixed charges - $ per month		23.65	31.67	44.11
	“delivery” cost 1000Kwh / month $	1000	51.45	68.27	97.91
	Electricity cost @ 13.2 Kwh for 1000Kwh $		132.00	132.00	132.00
	Grand total before tax		183.45	200.27	229.91
	HST		27.52	30.04	34.49
	Your cost		210.97	230.31	264.40
	Cost per Kwh at your door (at mid peak rate)		0.21	0.23	0.26
	The Calculations for 500 Kwh / Month
	Total per Kwh charges -cents/Kwh		2.78	3.66	5.38
	Total fixed charges - $ per month		23.65	31.67	44.11
	“delivery” cost 500Kwh / month $	500	37.55	49.97	71.01
	Electricity cost @ 13.2 Kwh for 500Kwh $		66.00	66.00	66.00
	Grand total before tax		103.55	115.97	137.01
	HST		15.53	17.40	20.55
	Your cost		119.08	133.37	157.56
	Cost per Kwh at your door (at mid peak rate)		0.24	0.27	0.32

Most customers usage will be 'adjusted' re 'line loss', their bills will be 5% to 10% more than calculated above. The line loss is no longer shown on your bill, for this rural user it is 1.105 resulting an additional 10.5% usage.
Edit - Note:  Upon asking why the 'line loss adjustment' (for both electricity usage and per Kw delivery costs) is no longer shown upon our bills Hydro One replied.......
“The Electricity Charges portion of your bill will now only display the metered consumption in kWh, the price difference between the adjusted consumption in kWh and metered consumption in kWh has been moved to the Delivery Charge line of your bill.”The total Electricity cost will depend upon the time of day used – the above is all at mid peak cost.
Just for interest at 1500 Kw/ month the totals are $302, $ 327, $371 and cost per Kwh 20c, 22c, 25c
At 100 kw /month rural customers would pay about $72 or 72c per Kwh!

According to Hydro Ones own numbers rural delivery rates are scheduled to increase 9.9% in 2016 and a further 9% in 2017, it is difficult to get exact details but according to one intervenor at the OEB hearings Hydro Ones proposed a fixed delivery rate of $141.12 by 2017 for rural customers, this before the cost of actual usage! The volume based delivery charge will be phased out so that the less hydro you use the greater the cost per Kwh at your door will be (even more so than at present). So much for conservation and those struggling with hydro costs already.
I note that on my own personal hydro bill the cost of “delivery” already exceeds the cost of the power used which in our case through careful attention to TOD rates is slightly below that touted by Hydro One as “average”. I can see how those with electric heat, or stay at home mums with several kids, or for that matter low income seniors will be severely impacted by these proposed changes and the measly 8% reduction just proposed by Winne will do little to alleviate the hardship.


Typical one month bill for City residents using 1,000 kWh / month effective May 2016
Ottawa ON $165.37
Halifax NS $158.83
Saskatoon SK $146.49
Regina SK $146.45
Moncton NB $124.98
St. John's NL $119.64
Saint John NB $111.71
Calgary AB $111.70
Vancouver BC $107.03
Edmonton AB $105.08
Winnipeg MB $84.29
Montreal QC $72.26


Couple of points here, it can be clearly seen that Ottawa Hydro rates (at the door) are well below the high density rates for Ontario Hydro ($183.45 before tax) and also clearly seen that Ontario electricity prices in general are far to high. If any number of provinces can deliver 1000 Kwh for around $100 why are Ontario rates at least 50% higher?
Finally for a full comparison try this link, it still does not fully reflect the Ontario Hydro prices but does give a good idea of the various different charges per province.

Edit
FYI - How many overpaid public service workers does it take to make Ontario the province with the highest electricity rates (excluding PEI which imports most of its power)? Well, at least 148 who made more than a quarter million dollars per year in 2014. See http://www.ontario-hydro.com/salaries-2014
I note here that I have no problem with high hourly rates paid to Linemen who regularly work with high voltage lines often up in a bucket in the middle of a winter storm, non of whom make anywhere like the amount taken home by these executives and supervisors.