The Black
Hydro One is reporting 4th quarter revenue was down 8.4% and overall profit was down almost 34 % from the previous year. The $1.7 Billion 2nd round of the Hydro One IPO got lukewarm investor reception. Hydro One delivered ever higher electric rates and bills to its captive customers. Hydro Quebec’s 2015 comparison study of electricity prices in major North American cities shows Montrealers pay $100 for 1000 kWh/month of electricity. Toronto residents pay $199. Consumers from residential to commercial industrial users are discovering that energy conservation is a great investment. Energy Probe reported in April that Ontario electricity demand has fallen by nearly 10% since 2007. In March 2016, Energy Probe reported that for 200 hours (equivalent to over 8 days) Ontario paid customers outside the province to import the Province’s excess power and some internal generators were paid not to generate power.
Utilities across North America are having their own UBER type challenges. Big utilities like to build big projects and try to bludgeon the regulator with doomsday scenarios to increase rates to fund them. The new distributed generation technologies means different types of electrical grid management and smaller engineering and project capabilities are needed.
The White
Public Utilities Fortnightly reported on May 3rd that residential customers in New York paid 15 % less per kWh for electricity in February 2016 than 2015.
Vermont’s Green Mountain Power, a subsidiary of Montreal based Gaz Metro, is the first North American utility to be certified as a “B corporation” – think LEED Platinum. Green Mountain has cut its electrical rates three times in the last 3 years and is a North American leader in energy conservation and renewable energies.
Watay Power is a newer electrical transmission company owned by 20 First Nations communities in Northwestern Ontario. Watay Power has chosen to work with Fortis Power and Res Canada to bring grid and renewable electricity to all their communities by 2024. These remote communities presently are powered by off grid diesel generation with capacity limits. Diesel fuel is delivered by ice roads most winters or, this past winter, even by air. Many communities are customers of Hydro One remote communities’ service (but will not be customers in the future). Grid access means that the community can divert money spent on diesel generated electricity into more appropriate homes and community infrastructure. Savings are projected to be in excess of $1 Billion
Larger power users like hospitals, pulp mills and multi-unit residential buildings are installing natural gas driven Combined Heat Power ( CHP) systems. System suppliers say that the delivered cost of CHP electricity is in the 5 cents per kWh range – a full two thirds to three quarters less than grid electricity.
At home, we can be on the white saving side of electricity by replacing old refrigerators, buying furnaces and boilers with ECM motors and inverter technology, air source heat pumps to replace hot water heaters, window air conditioners and baseboard heat.
