New rates for power, gas well below what former formula would charge
By COLLIN GALLANT on January 3, 2024.
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant The price of gas and electricity in the City of Medicine Hat has fallen to start the new year to substantial discounts compared to recent history. Natural gas will be charged at $1.95 per gigajoule in January as the city-owned utility moves to a cost-plus model for rate setting. That is down from $2.78 in December when the department charged local customers the average of default prices across the province. This month’s price is also 16 cents less than what would be a new default average in the province when the two regulated rate option prices of other major distributors are averaged. Gas, which hit a recent high of $9.31 in June 2022, had been steadily declining since last winter when worries of a shortage and conflict in Eastern Europe subsided. The City of Medicine Hat’s new power price also fell below the 10 cent per kilowatt hour mark on a default basis for the first time since 2020. A new local formula based on the forecast wholesale price of power in the Alberta market sees all customers in the Hat, Redcliff and some areas of Cypress county pay 9.23 cents per kWh, down from 10.88 cents to end 2023. That new price will be in effect until the end of March when a new quarterly rate will be announced. The rate is comprised of a base power rate of 8.4 cents plus an additional one-eighth of a cent to recover amounts from a provincially mandated deferral program in the winter of 2023. That payback portion is adjusted monthly leading to a minor month-to-month variance. The four Alberta RRO prices formerly used to determine the local default rate range from 18.16 to 19.55 cents for January. 11-10
