BC residents will be looking at a heftier hydro bill again next year.
Today, BC Hydro announced rates will go up 4% in 2017. The Crown utility is 3.5 billion dollars short of revenue targets projected in 2013. It says the shortfall is due to decreasing demand, particularly from industrial customers.
BC Hydro says it is taking steps to keep rates as low as possible, touting the fact that BC’s hydro rates are among the lowest in North America.
But not everyone is seeing the announcement in such a positive light.
“What they did today was as disastrous report as we’ve seen from BC Hydro in its history,” says Adrian Dix, BC Hydro critic for the BC NDP. “They missed, in terms of their overall revenue targets they set, by $3.5 billion. The demand forecast, which they use to justify projects such as Site C they’ve acknowledged now were dramatically in error. It was a very negative report.”
BC Hydro says prudent planning has allowed them to avoid passing most of its woes onto customers and says it is taking further actions to reduce costs. These include replacing contractors with internal staff, reducing the cost of conservation programs and developing a debt management strategy to ensure low interest rates.
Dix alleges they’re in an even deeper hole than what shows on paper, due to deferring billions of dollars in debts.
“This is another 4% after repeated increases because of these Liberal tactics of using BC Hydro to mislead the public about the state of the province’s finances. This is what they’ve wracked up: $1.1 billion more than they said they would, just in the last couple of years.”
Under the 10 Year Rates Plan from 2013, BC Hydro can continue to raise rates by up to 4% every year through 2018.
From then until 2023, hydro rates will be set by the BC Utilities Commission.
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