Power rates rise to four year high after price cap axed
By Medicine Hat News on December 3, 2019.
Utility customers will see power rates this month that haven’t been seen on bills in nearly four years. Electricity rates in Medicine Hat in December will rise to 7.75-cents per kilowatt hour, about a penny more than the recently cancelled price cap of 6.8-cents. Medicine Hat bases its commodity price on the average of those regulated rates charged across the province, and this month, those rates are no longer subject to a price cap that had been in place from early 2018 until this month. The difference had been made up to generators via carbon levy funds and had been in place during eight of the previous 12 months. Typical home usage during one month is about 500 kilowatt hours. Specific to this month’s calculated price, the high price for power this month is set by Epcor for Edmonton service at 8.069-cents, and the low is from Enmax at 7.320-cents. The price of gas to local consumers will also rise, to $3.046 per gigajoule in December, about 60-cents higher than November’s price. That local rate falls between prices set by Direct Energy and AltaGas for their service. Medicine Hat’s rates are for residential and small- to medium-commercial accounts. Large industrial and commercial customers without a contract pay a floating rate based on the grid price plus a 2-cent premium. In November that price was 7.615-cents. 9-8
