This past year we have worked to gain an understanding of Hydro One's rate structures and how they arrived at a pricing model for Seasonal customers that has a consumption component that is three times that of regular urban customers. Hydro One claims that Seasonal customers don't contribute adequate revenue to cover their costs in that the service is provided for 12 months of the year but many customers only use the service for 6-8 month of the year.
While this may be true for some Seasonal customers it is absolutely not true for many others who use their recreation property 12 months of the year. Hydro One's assumption is that Seasonal Class customers consume on average 6000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year where the average Residential customer consumes 9600 kilowatt hours per year. As a result, if your consumption is significantly above 6000 kwh/year, you are severely penalized with a rate structure that is highly inequitable. Conversely, if you are an Urban customer consuming less than 9600 kilowatt hours per year, your contribution to HON costs are significantly understated.

The Balsam Lake Coalition (BLC) has applied for and was granted intervenor status in the current Hydro One Networks (HON) rate case that is now before the Ontario Energy Board (OEB). Of considerable interest to BLC are the conclusions drawn from HON's Density Study that was commissioned in 2011 and delivered in 2012. The study looked at three density classes of customers - High, Medium and Low. The study concludes there is a clear and significant relationship between customer density and HON costs. HON has assumed/established that Seasonal customers lie between Medium and Low density territories and have therefore assumed a Revenue to Cost ratio of this density. We know from anecdotal evidence that many Seasonal customers reside in Urban-like territories or in Medium density territories (like those of Balsam Lake) where the Revenue to Cost ratio is much more favourable than in the Low density areas.
We have challenged HON's assumption through formal interrogatories and will await HON's response to our questions.

After a number of preliminary steps, the process will likely move to oral hearings at which point we intend to represent BLC with our follow up questions and to push for a more equitable implementation of the Density Study findings.

We have been working in concert with other advocacy groups and have received immeasurable assistance from them to date. We thank,

Consumers Council of Canada; http://www.consumerscouncil.com/
Energy Probe Research Foundation: http://epresearchfoundation.wordpress.com/

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