Hydro users get choice between time-of-use or tiered pricing
Peterborough Utilities and Hydro One customers will finally have a say in how they are billed for their electrical services, a choice that could help them save on average about $55 per year.
Customers can now switch to a tiered pricing system from the time-of-use system they now have, the provincial government announced Tuesday in revealing that electricity rates will increase by about two per cent starting Nov. 1.
“I do want to say this is a really positive change,” Jay Armitage, vice-president of marketing and communications for Hydro One, told The Examiner. “This is the first time customers in Ontario will have a choice in their electricity pricing plan, this is something we advocated for and, in fact, we had advocated for it because we have been listening to our customers.”
Armitage said 64 per cent of Hydro One customers, including in Peterborough, wanted a choice when it comes to pricing plans.
Under time-of-use pricing, customers pay lower rates when they use power at offpeak times of the day as measured through their smart meters. Under tiered pricing, customers have an allotted amount of electricity at a standard rate, but once that amount is used customers move up to a higher rate bracket, Armitage explained.
“That is a flat rate up until a certain point,” she said. “Where the rate increases and so the choices between the two options really depends on your lifestyle.”
Under the tiered option that becomes available on Nov. 1, customers get 1,000 kilowatt hours in the month at the standard rate.
There will be customers that benefit from these choices, Armitage said, and they will see some changes in the monthly amounts they pay for electricity by switching to tiered pricing.
Some customers would be better off sticking with time-ofuse pricing based on their normal usage.
“Twelve per cent of our cus
tomers really should be staying on time-of-use and then there is another big chunk of our customers where the difference is so marginal, they really don’t benefit from changing,” Armitage said.
Hydro One has a calculator and tools on its web portal to help people calculate if switching will help them save money with the new option, she said.
Hydro One will be communicating over the next few months with its customers to inform those who might not have heard of the change and see if they can save them money on their bills.
“We will be contacting customers directly as the months pass with our own analysis of their accounts,” Armitage said.