Customers in crisis tap B.C. Hydro fund for nearly $300,000

Some 3,000 cash-strapped B.C. Hydro customers have applied to the utility for help from a fund created in May to bail people out of crisis situations, the corporation says.

Hydro has made about 700 onetime payments, worth a total of $295,000, from the customer-crisis fund approved by the B.C. Utilities Commission during its last rate-design application. It’s supported by a 25-cents-per-month levy on all residential customers.

“It’s really for those one-time situations, a one-time grant (for) people facing extreme situations where they’ve exhausted every other option available (to pay their bills),” said Hydro spokeswoman Mora Scott.

The fund is expected to generate $5.3 million a year and Scott said the utility estimates it might extend help to 10,000 customers.

The fund generated backlash from some customers, however, who complained in social media about being surprised when the customer-crisis-fund charge started showing up on their bills in May and called it an additional tax.

“Why should I, a pensioner, pay for someone who doesn’t pay their bill,” said Vancouver Province reader Tamara Clarke in a letter to the editor. “It seems they sit around dreaming up ways to gouge more money from their customers.”

The idea for the fund came from the B.C. Old Age Pensioners’ Organization during hearings into B.C. Hydro’s 2015 rate application, said utilities commission spokeswoman Krissy Van Loon, as a means to help people struggling with rising electricity rates.

“By providing relief to customers experiencing temporary financial crisis, B.C. Hydro may be able to reduce costs associated with disconnects, reconnects and collections,” Van Loon said in an email.

However, after hearing concerns from customers, Van Loon said the commission is considering doing an evaluation of the pilot project at the end of its first year, rather than after three years as planned.

“If a proceeding regarding the timing of B.C. Hydro’s evaluation report is established, we would encourage the public to participate in the process,” Van Loon said.

Van Loon said the crisis fund was established as the “result of an open and transparent review process” that involved 36 groups including low-income customers, environmental organizations and commercial and industrial customers.

Scott said B.C. Hydro conducted customer surveys and focus groups during the two-year process at the utilities commission, but “we always encourage people with feedback to reach out to us.”

The fund isn’t intended to cover delinquent accounts, but rather pay out one-time grants up to $600 to help customers in emergency situations, such as the loss of a job, an illness, or death of a family member.

“They also need to be facing disconnection and we need to be able to see that they’ve attempted to pay their bill, but are just not going to be able to do it,” Scott said.

B.C. Hydro has about 120,000 accounts that are more than 30 days delinquent, but Scott said that number doesn’t account for customers who are billed bimonthly and simply forgot to pay bills rather than are unable to pay.

Scott said any money that isn’t paid out or used in the fund’s administration will be held in a separate account until the end of the pilot period.

“Once we get to that point, it will go back to customers, if there is money left over,” Scott said.