Energy minister Bob Chiarelli didn’t quite put it in those terms Wednesday. But it’s clear that consumers will be expected to take a more active role in managing their own bills in future, by choosing how much power they use, and when.
They’ll have to manage consumption, because they can’t expect lower prices, Chiarelli said bluntly, in a theme that will be central to the province’s updated long term energy plan, due to be released Monday.
“There is no government that’s going to commit, or be able to honour a commitment, to reduce rates from where they are now. It’s just a fact of life,” Chiarelli said.
“What we are doing is taking very significant steps to allow people to better control their consumption, and other factors that allow them to impact on their rates.”
Chiarelli peeled back one small corner of the energy plan update, announcing a new section of the energy ministry’s website called emPOWERme, at www.ontario.ca/empowerme .
“We need to do more to promote energy literacy in this province,” Chiarelli said.
The new site includes videos with titles including “what is a kilowatt hour?” “the value of conservation” and “how is electricity made”?
(The new site is not to be confused with others of a similar name, which include an Ottawa yoga studio, a business consulting service, and an energy conservation group in Portland, Maine.)
From Wednesday’s announcement, and from hints dropped in the past weeks, it’s clear that the revamped plan will focus on damping demand rather than boosting supply – or lowering prices.
Chiarelli didn’t apologize for price increases.
“The economic factors that are in play are that your phone bills are going up, your cable bills are going up, there’s inflationary component to almost every fee that is being paid by the public,” he said.
Even newspapers are charging new fees for their websites, he said.
“What we’re doing is making sure the (electricity) rate increases are very significantly mitigated,” he said.
“There is no government that’s going to commit, or be able to honour a commitment, to reduce rates from where they are now,” he said. “It’s just a fact of life.”
“What we are doing is taking very significant steps to allow people to better control their consumption and other factors that allow them to impact on their rates.”
The Liberal government has already turned back a proposal by Ontario Power Generation to build two new reactors at the Darlington nuclear station.
Projections by the Ontario Power Authority show demand being flat or slightly lower through 2020. The province’s original energy plan, released in 2010, showed demand increasing slightly.
Chiarelli said the revamped plan will have a “much higher emphasis on conservation” and curbing demand at times when power prices are high.
That will place more onus on consumers to make choices.
Most consumers are already on time of use rates, which are high on weekday mornings and evenings, but lower on weekends and overnight.
“The understanding of how they can now control – by conservation and time of use – their electricity prices is a new horizon, and we are going to make sure we get ahead of that wave,” Chiarelli said.
He said current projections show annual price increases over the next 20 years averaging 3.4 per cent. That compares with average increases of 3.5 per cent over the past 20 years, he said.
Reducing consumption doesn’t necessarily lower the over-all cost of power in the province, because many privately owned generators get paid even when they’re not producing. Some are paid to reduce consumption when there’s surplus power; others receive flat-rate fees based on their generating capacity, in addition to the payments they get for producing power.
Asked for examples of how consumers can trim their own bills, Chiarelli said they can sign up for “peaksaver” programs with their local hydro utility.
Those programs allow the utility to turn off appliances such as air conditioners or pool pumps for short periods when the power system is under strain. Consumers who sign up get a display monitor in their homes informing them how much power they’re using minute to minute.
He also suggested using more energy efficient light bulbs, or re-configuring circuits that automatically turn on multiple lights.
Chiarelli said the new education program will also try to explain the plethora of energy agencies in the province, which include the Independent Electricity System Operator, the Ontario Power Authority, the Ontario Energy Board, and the publicly owned operating companies, Ontario Power Generation and Hydro One.
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