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Your Electricity Bill
Common charges on all bills
Whether you buy your electricity from a local utility at a regulated rate or from an independent electricity retailer, your electricity bill each month contains a number of charges including:
- Electricity : These are charges related to the energy you consume. This can either be provided by a regulated provider (i.e., local utility) or an electricity retailer.
- Delivery : The cost of delivering electricity from generators to utilities and then to your home or business.
- Regulatory : The cost of administering the wholesale electricity system and maintaining the reliability of the provincial grid.
- Debt Retirement Charge : Set by the Ministry of Finance to pay down the residual stranded debt of the former Ontario Hydro.
Other items on bills from electricity retailers
If you have signed a contract with an independent electricity retailer, in addition to the above there will some other items on your bill. These include:
- A Provincial Benefit line: It can be a credit or a charge to you, and is your share of the difference between government regulated and contract prices for electricity paid to certain generators and the market prices they would have received had they not been subject to government regulation or contracts. If you buy electricity under the Regulated Price Plan, an estimate of this amount is already reflected in the stable price for electricity set by the OEB, shown on the “Electricity” line of your bill. If you buy from an electricity retailer, the Provincial Benefit is not included in the contract price offered by the retailer, so on your bill it’s shown as a separate item.
- An OPG Rebate. The Ontario Government placed a cap on the amount paid to certain generation facilities owned by Ontario Power Generation (OPG). Consumers will receive a rebate for any revenues from those facilities exceeding an average price of 4.7 cents/kWh in 2007-2008. On May 1, 2008, the revenue cap will increase to 4.8 cents/kWh for the subsequent 12 month period. An estimate of the OPG rebate is included in the Regulated Price Plan prices. Consumers that leave the Regulated Price Plan and sign a contract with an electricity retailer will receive the OPG Rebate on a quarterly basis. The total rebate amount will be calculated using only the electricity you used after you left the Regulated Price Plan.
More information
The OEB does not have access to consumers’ accounts. For detailed information about your specific electricity bill, you should contact your energy provider directly or visit their Web site.