August 2010 Maritime Electric Bill
This August you may see an increase in your Maritime Electric bill, but your
annual year over year costs
versus last year will remain virtually the same. We want to explain why an increase
may be occurring on your bill this
month.
Electricity rates fluctuate each month due to changes in the Energy Cost
Adjustment Mechanism, or ECAM,
which is a formula approved by the Island Regulatory & Appeals Commission (IRAC)
that impacts the
timing of collection of energy costs paid by Maritime Electric on behalf of customers. These costs are
passed through at cost, and there is no mark up by Maritime
Electric.
The change in rates on your August bill is due to the rebasing of the
ECAM base rate which came into effect
August 1st. The change was recently approved by IRAC after a hearing was
conducted in June. The
approved change allows the Company to collect more of energy costs from
customers when the cost is
incurred by the Company, as opposed to collecting these costs in the future.
The increase you see in your August bill is temporary as the impact of
this change will gradually
begin to decrease in subsequent months and this decrease is forecast to continue into 2011
(unless there are significant
changes in energy costs).
While there is an increase in August with this readjustment, your 2010 and
2011 annual electricity costs from Maritime Electric should
remain virtually the same versus 2009.
Here's an example for a typical Maritime Electric residential customer:
A typical residential customer uses 650 kWh per month. In 2009 this typical
customer paid $1549 per year for
electricity. In 2010 it is forecast to be $1546
and in 2011 it is forecast to be $1563.
So rates continue
to fluctuate on a monthly basis because of ECAM, but on a year over year basis a
typical residential customer
is forecasted to pay roughly the same amount for electricity in 2010 and
2011 as they did in 2009.
We hope this will provide you with some information that is helpful
in understanding the
bump in rates you experienced on your August bill and how your per kWh rate will
begin to gradually fall
beginning in September.
Customers can subscribe to
the "residential rate notification"
program on our website. If you want to subscribe, an email will be sent advising
you of the following month's per kWh charge.
There is also information in this area of our website that we hope will
help customers understand more about electricity rates
on PEI, including why rates are higher here on PEI versus most other Canadian
jurisdictions.
For more information please call Customer Service at 1-800-670-1012.
