The Bottom Line

Billing

Mar 25, 2009  Comment

In an earlier posting we talked about the fact that Yukon Energy has asked our regulator, the Yukon Utilities Board (YUB), for a decrease in rates, while Yukon Electrical Ltd. has asked for a rate increase. One of you wrote that the total amount on your electric bill is all that’s really important.

Today we’re going to speak about that bottom line. We will try to shed some light on the changes you’ve seen in your power bills over the last several months, and changes that are still to come. A warning that we are going throw a lot of numbers at you, but bear with us … we will try to keep the "head swimming" factor to a minimum.

Let’s take an example of a homeowner who uses 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity each month (the average usage in Yukon is about 750 kilowatt hours per month).

Last July, this person’s bill would have been $132.80, including GST.

The Yukon Electrical Company Ltd. asked the Yukon Utilities Board to approve an 11 percent increase in rates. While the YUB considered the request, it approved on an interim basis an increase of five percent, starting on August 1 of last year.

Assuming our sample homeowner used the same amount of power in August as in July, their bill increased to $138.60.

Then Yukon Energy asked for a rate decrease of 17.8 percent for residential customers using 1,000 kilowatt hours or less a month. While the YUB considered our request, it approved an interim decrease of 3.48 percent, starting December 1, 2008.

As a result, our homeowner’s bill decreased to $134.56 starting in December. Again, this is based on 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity used.

If the Yukon Utilities Board had approved Yukon Energy’s request for a 17.8 percent decrease, our homeowner would have seen their bill reduced to $116.34 a month.

Are you still with us? There’s more as we look beyond the end of 2008!

The Rate Stabilization Program is a Yukon government subsidy you will notice on your power bill. The program is scheduled to end in July of this year. If that happens in combination with Yukon Energy’s request for a 17.8 percent decrease and all other rates in effect prior to last December, our homeowner’s bill would be $135.84.

The two utilities have announced that the Fuel Adjustment Rider (Rider F) has been reduced to zero for bills starting March 1, 2009, until the Yukon Electrical Company Ltd.‘s final rates are determined. This will save our homeowner $19.53 per month during this period.

We are still waiting to learn the final amount that the Yukon Electrical Company Ltd. will be allowed to charge its customers. But based on a recent ruling from the Yukon Utilities Board, the Yukon Electrical Company Ltd. will not receive the full 11 percent increase it asked for. Yukoners should know within a few months what the final numbers will be.

It’s important to us that you understand we have no control over what Yukon Electrical Company Ltd. is allowed to charge by the Yukon Utilities Board. We don’t have control over the fate of the Rate Stabilization Fund either. But in the areas we can control, Yukon Energy is doing everything we can to keep electrical rates as low as possible for the greatest number of Yukoners possible.

In our next posting we will talk more about the rate changes we have asked our regulator to approve and we’ll explain the rationale behind our request.

Note that one of you recently asked what your bill might look like if you used between 1,300 and 1,800 kilowatt hours per month. We will address this issue of "second block" electricity usage in our next posting as well. Please keep those questions coming; we will try to answer each and every one of them.

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