Sundance#4 went offline at 21:23 Friday and after several attempts came back online at 22:09…Ontario Power Generation Feb. 7 shut down Unit 8 at the 3,100 MW Pickering nuclear power plant for a planned maintenance outage.
Andrew Leach, University of Alberta energy expert, said fixed rates will not be cheaper. “They’re not offering you a discounted electricity price, they’re offering you a fixed electricity price – like any insurance policy you’re going to pay something for that. If you sign a fixed-price contract you should expect to pay over the course of a year. You’re actually going to pay more for your power than a fluctuating system, but you’re going to have that certainty.” A comparison of fixed electricity rates and regulated-rate options are available on the Utilities Consumer Advocate website at ucahelps.alberta.ca.
Rural Electrification Associations are uniquely Albertan – they do not exist elsewhere in Canada but they were, and remain today, the backbone and driving force that delivers electricity to thousands of rural Albertans, farmers and business owners alike. However, the REAs continued existence is threatened. The rules in Alberta are working against the REAs because of the increased investment levels and the profit-maximizing investment of the multinational utilities. Government needs to thoroughly review the current legislation and revise the recent changes in legislation that have allowed this to happen. These multinational utility companies have the added advantage of benefiting from their own defined, protected service areas under current legislation, where they operate as a monopoly providing an essential service to consumers without a choice. Correspondingly, the ability of the multinational utility companies to raise their investment levels in the past couple of years now effectively allows them to also utilize these levels to purchase REAs and rewards them for doing so.
