No increase planned for Nelson Hydro rates in wake of FortisBC rise
By Timothy Schafer
Nelson Hydro customers will be buffered from the province-wide electricity rate increase that was handed down by FortisBC on Aug. 1.
Nelson Hydro is not planning to flow through the FortisBC rate change, said the city’s electrical utility manager, Alex Love.
“We do forecast our annual energy purchase costs and include rate changes in those forecasts,” he said. “We had not foreseen this August 1 rate change but had included the January 1 rate change in our power purchase forecast.”
FortisBC completed its annual rates review with the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) and received approval from the BCUC for a 1.6 per cent increase.
The BCUC’s rate review also made permanent the 3.5 per cent interim rate effective Jan. 1, 2015.
Nelson Hydro tries to limit rate changes to once annually, said Love.
“We can absorb this rate impact in our 2015 operating budget,” he said. “The August 1 FBC rate change will put upward pressure on our 2016 rates.”
Nelson Hydro purchases about $6 million of electricity from FortisBC each year, which is about half of the energy the utility needs to serve its customers.
The other half is produced by the city-owned Nelson Hydro power plants.
“We can’t produce all the electricity we need with our own power plants because we have a limited amount of water available to us,” said Love.
In a press release FortisBC claimed the increase was necessary to make upgrades and improvements to the electrical system and to purchase added capacity for the system.
Comments