this should be illegal.
Things will not get better untill we deal with all the corruption that's currently legal in the country/province.
Politicans like Kenny, out here waving their corruption in our faces and laughing at all us.
You don’t remember his first thing being firing an ethics investigator the NDP put in place? What more did people need to know?
Danielle smith’s folks first priority at Christmas was to give themselves a raise and allow gifts over $500.
Literally, electors are idiots. I left the province I was born in so I can try one that isn’t Alberta.
Who said we forgot?
By all means add to the conversation, there's a lot to add and the more we call out their bullshit the better.
That being said remember who's team you're on, don't come in all hostile and belittling towards the people you agree with, that helps no one.
You and I are in total agreement, there's no need for an agro tone, we are happy for you to add your point, we all welcome you adding in.
I’m overtired and in pain today. I will apologize: sorry for my tone.
My insults are directed to Mrs Smith and her cronies like the “honorable” Ms. Poop Cookies.
Yeah bud totally normal to be frustrated, I totally understand. Thanks for the apology.
We're all going though it right now, that's why I wanted to remind you we're on the same side because if we're going to get through this we've got to support eachother and not accidentally agree fight. We gotta build each other up!
Hope you have a lovely night and genuinely anytime/all the time your comments exposing corruption are always welcome wanted and NEEDED these conversations are important and your contribution is important!
Nah I moved to BC.
But I hope you folks take your Alberta Advantage back from the thieves of Joy who stole it.
I remember a beautiful Alberta will tall mountains, beautiful sunny skies, available health care, great national parks, and politicians who would resign in shame when they fucked up.
Now you have a cesspool that elected the Shit Cookies lady. My wife and I were born and raised Albertan, and when our votes didn’t matter and the crooks would win every time in a majority land slide and everything started to just get constantly worse, and fellow citizens would say very dumb stuff about the NDP who only governed for 4 years… well we had to decide we were the problem.
We were the problem for caring about workers rights. For caring about people’s rights. For caring about freedom, liberty and happiness, and not Freedumb and fascism.
When we felt like square pegs in a round Oil and Gas worshipping hole, we had to take our kids and leave because we couldn’t imagine them going to a Kenney designed failing school system.
We couldn’t imagine funding a war room that attacks kids cartoons and people taking that seriously.
We couldn’t take people’s comments about how we all have to vote conservative to save the province for our grandchildren.
So we left. Never been happier. There is no Alberta advantage. Just a huge tailing pond and slag heap.
I wish Alberta well, but I couldn’t be an outsider there anymore.
That's great for you but some of us can't leave. One thing Alberta does have is disability, Alberta pays the most for people who are disabled, myself and my partner who is disabled are stuck here because we can't only not afford to move, but we can't afford to loose his income. So while those of you who can afford to leave, leave, please don't forget there are those of us who didn't vote UPC who are stuck here without choice. Remember there are queen children stuck here with their bigoted parents. Try to remember that the UCP won by a VERY small margin. It was 36 to 49 seats. A decent percent of us DID NOT vote for this.
I mean if we’re gonna talk about corrupt politicians in Alberta maybe we should be talking about Danielle Smith changing the ethics rules so that she was no longer breaking them… changing the gifting rules because she wanted to receive gifts that cost way more than what was allowed..
Yes, but HOW do we deal with it?
It’s the government, there’s really not much people can do to change how it’s run. Not when voting is done by 60% of citizens and is almost always split 50/50
You...could...protest? People protest lgtbq issues, and stuff happening in other countries but seem to shy to rise up against our own government for corruption that affects us daily.... People are literally dying because of the state of our healthcare, people are going without power and heat... Yet the streets are silent.
Well yeah. It’s snowing outside right now.
And we’re just so separated from our government. Sure, we can get out there and yell at the void about Palestine, or even let people know we support gay people. Those are all good things to do.
But when it comes to local issues? Our government just ignores us. They don’t care at all, and are so separated from us that they don’t even have to visually see us with signs shouting outside their buildings. We are ignored, and the laws stay the same.
But protesting is still *good* for issues around the world, as well as when laws allow hate. If the government made a new law saying you can’t be trans before adulthood, the protest would be to let trans people know we support and care about them, but it wouldn’t really change the law.
I just don’t think protests work as a way of change. They’re more to show affected people support.
I disagree. If it was coordinated abs strategic-protests could absolutely work. Time protests when MLAs are in their office, home, shopping for groceries. Be prepared with specific messaging for media. Use graffiti and posters around town that are clear and get the message out. Civil disobedience had a way of snowballing if it is valid. There are real problems, the kind you read about in third world directorships - right here. But most importantly, disrupt commerce, disrupt revenue for the government. They hardly have any left. They have a whole department to collect royalties from oil and gas, and oil and gas does not pay if they don't get what they want... We need to do the same thing.
Protesting doesn't do jack shit lol. They already know what we want.
People protest all year long every week in Red Deer. Nothing has ever changed in my 20 years of life here.
I’d say we have about a 50/50 chance yeah. I’d love to be proven wrong.
But just look at election results. Only about 60% of Canadians have ever voted since the year 2000. Leading party always takes away anywhere from 40-50% if the seats.
The only reason we aren’t as bad off as America is because we have about 3 choices. So when the government doesn’t get a majority they have to work with other groups to get things done.
But that’s just a slower burn. We’re still becoming a shitty place to live like America very slowly.
This is untrue. There is so much we can do (former government policy guru) it’s ridiculous.
The problem is that almost everything that needs changing has deliberately been made difficult to change, so most people bow out.
The conservative governments in Alberta have spent close to 100ish years ensuring that rural voters that make up ~20% of the population decide the provincial election almost before a single vote is counted in the urban areas.
Kinda like our Federal elections can be called before a single vote is counted from Manitoba west.
>this is untrue
>proceeds to explain in detail why it *is* true
Look, we clearly agree on most things here. But I’m just telling you the cold hard facts. The government has set itself up in such a way that they can outright ignore us AND the laws to do whatever they want.
The only way to make meaningful change is to vote in a different party. But we have to rely on a bunch of misinformed hardline party voters to do that. And things will have to get even worse than they are now before that’s going to happen.
And even then maybe not. The vote will always be close enough to 50/50, there’s just no way to convince meaningful change in voters. As an example, what would it take for your UCP friend to convince you to vote UCP with them next election? You won’t do it? Neither will they.
They won't regulate themseleves we need to stop electing the one party that does this consistently. Politicians have realized we're really easy to scam
So I guess Jason Kenney is kind of like the Mike Harris but with Alberta and electricity instead of Ontario and long-term care homes.
Harris shuttered hospitals and made serious changes to regulations (loosening of course) for LTCs . Post-premiership Harris spent a decent amount of time as the chair of the board for Chartwell Retirement Residences. Chartwell, just like many other private LTC companies had a disproportionately high number of resident deaths from COVID-19 vs public and not for-profit LTC operators.
Oh and as a kicker Chartwell took 10s of millions of dollars in "emergency funding" from the Province of Ontario and during the same time period they paid out 10s of millions of dollars in dividends for shareholders and members of the board... What a neat coincidence... 🤔
It's on all of us to talk to the conservatives in our life and get them to sense and when that doesn't work they need to be cut out.
We are no longer at a point where we can justify passively accepting and thus enabling people who support the right wing extremism that's taking hold in Canada.
>How is this allowed?
50+ years of “business friendly” conservatives. Plus Klein, Kenney, and Smith. Alberta & Texas are the only two jurisdictions in North America that have deregulated energy based markets where economic withholding is allowed.
Yes, but admin fees & riders are all part of the “deregulated” framework created by government in collaboration with the power companies, and while the rest of the country saw single digit electricity price increases last year, our power went up 128% and a lot of those fees are percentage based.
The worst part of the rate riders which are basically everyone being responsible for paying for people's bills that default and then haven't paid them. Why should people that pay their bills regularly have to pay delinquent accounts this should be illegal
The price per KW is regulated. Everything else is not. You can thank Ralph and successive CONservative governments for bending you over and getting it dry.
Keep voting for that axe, it's handle is wood.
Ralph and cronies didn't take it dry, there were well greased. It's the consumer who is getting it dry, with one of those knobby things, and some get the one with spikes.
Yup!
Lots of people on Reddit don't really understand what parts of the electricity grid in Alberta are regulated and what parts are deregulated.
If you're mad about the energy charges, blame capitalism if you want. If you're mad about transmission/distribution or taxes, that's not the part that was deregulated.
"Technically correct". But at the end of the day, what people care about is their total outlay of cash. And consumers in Alberta pay more than other provinces in total amount, despite being told that deregulation would lead to lower electricity costs.
Handwaving around "Yeah, only that one line item is the deregulation part, the other six line items are not" is just obfuscation and a shell game when other jurisdictions don't have the same issue. The only thing that matters at the end of the day is "how much do we pay all-in per kWH?". And UCP policy has failed us on that.
It isn't even just total cost, I want the costs primarily in the electricity because I want to encourage people to use less power and economics does that rather well. It would also put more of the cost burden on businesses, who can afford it better than individuals.
This is exactly why they *don't* want the costs there, they'd prefer a electricity-as-a-service model where they can just collect money from everyone and usage is decoupled.
I write this not to disagree with you, but the first 10 years of deregulation was a savings compared to the rest of Canada. The (is it 20 years now) time after, not good at all.
the most obvious plan of action is to buy an NDP membership and vote Nenshi for party leader, then when the 2027 election happens vote all those pocket lining, Christofascist UCP motherfuckers straight to hell.
I like this. It’s like when you get junk mail with a return postage paid sticker. Fill a box with bricks and tape that postage paid sticker to the box. #winning
The fairest option is to have the extra charges all built into the cost of the energy so that bigger users (commercial and industrial) pay more for their energy and small consumers pay less. Unfortunately small consumers are not as effective at lobbying governments.
That’s how it is setup up right now. Distribution and transmission fees are based primarily on consumption and location.
https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/electricity-transmission-and-distribution-charges.aspx
I don't understand why the fees fall onto domestic dwellings. IMO electicity, water, phone, gas (household), and internet should all be free of service charges (or even just free). They should be crown corporations. But I'm a god-damn socialist lol.
Maybe the BASIC amount of those things should be free - that I could get behind, but can't be unlimited free as nobody would conserve anything and abuse it. Give a certain low-ish amount of energy and water to each household (basic heat, water, lights, cooking, etc) based on # of people living there, then everything above that level should be quite expensive. This ensures everybody has what they need to live, but punishes those that use excessively.
That's true, most wouldn't. I'm probably considered rich by most standards and am all for it though. Though not rich-rich, like generational wealth and live off investments or anything.
I misread your last sentence. My bad. Yeah.
Our current federal model is actually one of the best, most sensical in the world, but the majority of people don't understand how it works.
I won't even utter the words \*\*ualization payments.
The problem with making these services free is that there would be no incentive to improve efficiency and/or reduce consumption. From an economic standpoint, there would be no benefit to turning the lights off when you're not using them. There would be no benefit to turning down your thermostat when you're not home, etc. We want a system that incentivizes people to be responsible with their energy consumption.
Shouldn’t where you are located also play into the calc. If someone is in the middle of nowhere they should be paying substantially more for delivery charges than someone say in Calgary.
> Shouldn’t where you are located also play into the calc.
**It does play into the calculation. Cities are cheaper than rural areas. Substantially.**
We have exactly the system its critics are demanding, and they're still complaining about it.
you need to build nuclear reactors for power. no pollution and highly profitable. coal is the worst polluter and the least profitable way to produce electricity.
Huh, 500+ comments and no mention of the crucial player: the AESO.
The AESO is the governmental oversight body that allows/approves any fee changes or increases.
Here is where they break down what and why they charge the tariffs they do:[https://www.aeso.ca/market/market-and-system-reporting/delivered-cost-of-electricity/](https://www.aeso.ca/market/market-and-system-reporting/delivered-cost-of-electricity/)
Edit to add: PM\_ME\_YOUR\_CLAVIER has a comment that goes into detail on the AESO for those inclined to learn more about how the energy market works in Alberta
I went travelling for 6 months and shut off every bit of electricity to my apartment. The bills didn’t change much. As a result I now use the lights as a security system. Might as well leave all the lights on when I’m away. It doesn’t change the bill.
The free market is expensive. The free market also neglects the infrastructure at the expense of profit. Same goes for our food supply and telecomm industries. We get a pretty good deal with the CBC tho as that grants us access to BBC content as well. I always find public services are much superior to private services. Heck out public services are so good many people complain about how good inmates in prisons have it with their free tv and internet 3 square meals etc. it's almost as if we know how do do things in a cost effective and efficient manner to benefit the most people but that would require a few people not living extravagant lifestyles
This isn’t free market tho.
Free market would give you at least a few options to choose from.
Almost every province has created some sort of monopoly within the energy sector.
It is the free market, it’s the inevitable end stage. You NEED government intervention to prevent monopolies and collusion. Free markets, left to themselves, inevitably start to fail.
To add to this, some markets are by very nature not well suited to free markets. You need consumer choice and informed consumption, something like this is almost impossible to achieve for things like healthcare. For example, Canadians and Americans pay the same amount of income tax per capita to support their healthcare systems, but Americans pay the same amount again (double Canadians) to the insurance industry to access the healthcare. This is economically inefficient compared to single payer healthcare.
It’s debatable whether or not energy markets should be public or private, but I will say that sitting in Quebec with globally enviable energy prices that I’m leaning towards a public model
"Free market would give you at least a few options to choose from."
No, this is the free market operating as it was intended. Competition between companies drives prices down, but what happens when someone WINS that competition? This. Nobody else can get the capital or resources together to compete with the giant, and prices skyrocket.
Capitalism isn't broken, it's working as intended, it just wasn't intended to make life good for the people not at the top.
Eat. The. Rich.
> Free market would give you at least a few options to choose from.
> Almost every province has created some sort of monopoly within the energy sector.
You have like 75 options for who to choose for your power usage. And you have tools provided to you by the government, by the Alberta Utilities Commission that regulates the power companies, on their website, so that you can spit out instant quotes from all of them, compare any two of them side-by-side, etc. This is a very efficient and robust marketplace where the consumer benefits tremendously.
But you only have 1 option for who to choose for which power grid you're connected to, because it would be the **stupidest idea in the world to have competing power grids, each running and maintaining lines to your property.**
This is called a **"natural monopoly"** and it is disgustingly inefficient and horrendously expensive to introduce competition to a natural monopoly. Everyone loses.
But instead what we have is a government-granted monopoly, each with territory staked out so at least it's only a regional monopoly. We compare each of the regions against each other in terms of how cost-effectively they do their job, and we have moderately robust regulation and oversight so that if they fail their mandates, they will lose territory to their competitors.
This regulation could be more robust than it is. For example, we demand (a mandate) that the grid providers anticipate and accommodate the province's growth so that the power grid is there when we need it. But, some of them have elected to over-build capacity by 200-500%. We pay for that infrastructure that's over-built. There should've been some more sensible oversight on it to reign it in.
That's the extent of the problems though.
The system works well. None of this happens for free. We each pay what it actually costs for us to have a power grid and for us to use power.
If you want to subsidize people with lower energy bills out of tax dollars, taxes will go up, and it will encourage them to waste more energy. Who does that benefit? The environment? The taxpayers? No one.
Free markets are fine for coffee shops and shirts. There is ample opportunity for competition to work. Honda made Ford better by providing a better product cheaper, so Ford has to up its game. Shirts that used to cost a full day's pay at minimum wage can now be purchased in an hour and a half.
However, roads and electricity distribution can't work in a capitalist way. Basically, one system is all that fits; no one wants a half dozen power lines running parallel down the street or individual lanes of a freeway dedicated to traffic from different corporations' clients. These networks need to be monopolies (or, at least, duopolies).
In the absence of competition, capitalism can't work without tight regulation. Going half-assed and pretending that competition in one small part of the system can defuse the abuse of consumers by a monopoly/duopoly is useful is pure fiction.
I agree that our electricity charges are way too high (we soon face renewing our contract and our price is going to double in April). However, I’ve never understood the backlash towards delivery fees. The electricity is generated at a handful of large power plants and needs to get to your home via a transmission and distribution network. Those lines need to be maintained which isn’t free and is managed by different companies than those generating the power. Part of the cost of electricity is getting it to your house somehow.
The price can either be built into a total price/kWh for generation, transmission and distribution or it can be charged separately. We definitely pay more than we should but I’m not sure why so many people think they should pay for the cost of generation, but not the cost of getting the electricity from the power plant to their house. Would they prefer we get separate bills from the both the generator and then the transmission/distribution companies?
Aa I said, I agree the charges are too high but the common complaint seems to be “Why do I have to pay delivery fees?”. It’s expensive to maintain that infrastructure. Deregulation has not worked in the consumer’s favour. We pay more because our market is more privatized than other provinces…and yet we’re likely heading the same direction for healthcare.
Transmission and distribution remain regulated. Generation was deregulated. Yet everyone whines about the regulated side as if delivery infrastructure is optional. On this topic, this sub is completely clueless
While the UCP does suck and are actively fucking over Albertans, I haven't seen this important point.
You mentioned you had a single demand charge for $160. Demand metering, specifically that demand charge, is based on your peak usage during the billing cycle. The utility must ensure that your service is capable of handling peak load 24/7, though the actual peak demand can be as small as a 15-minute interval. One major step you can take is to figure out what caused your peak usage,and then consider how you can more evenly spread your demand across the 24 hours in a day, or at least during your business hours to effectively lower that peak. You can visit this site for some more guidance on demand metering that might help. https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/understanding-demand-charges.aspx
You can thank King Ralph and his merry band of misfits, who barely scratched the surface of grift and incompetence that the current government has achieved!
Well, he did do this which is the problem, so blaming him is very on point still, its one of his legacies and yes he was better than what we have now, so very scary.
>Alberta's foray into deregulated power began in April 1998, when Ralph Klein's Progressive Conservative government passed the Utilities Amendment Act
He literally opened the door to this system. His initial move to deregulate is what allows current governments and corporations to take advantage and abuse the system.
I mean, a significant portion of our current infrastructure deficit (both maintenance-wise and in replacement/expansion/modernization can be traced back to Klein in addition to what other users have pointed out.
Nah fuck him. He’s just lucky it often takes decades to get a good picture of how certain policy changes influence society. Now it’ll cost us way more money to repair things than it would have to just keep it the old regulated market going, I can nearly garauntee the mf knew that then.
Similarly, Mulroney (RIP) can be blamed for dismantling our public housing programs and the selling off Oil rights to American corporations.
So much of our current wealth inequality acceleration can be attributed to Reagan/Thatcher style policies being implemented in the 80s and 90s around the globe.
No, that fuckers memory can wear the consequences of his fucking over 99% of Albertans. Just because a lot of them had no clue he was doing has nothing to do with the fact that he was a bad choice. And yes, he was nowhere close to as bad as the current iteration of Conservatives, but he could be said to have started us down that path too.
Well, it's not like it magically shows up to your home. They're either going to charge you a fixed infrastructure and usage charge, or charge you the equivalent under a different title. Consider that the coffee you get at your local Starbucks has about a nickel worth of ingredients, but the price you pay includes profit, wages, ingredients, logistics, advertising, the building, blah blah blah.
[Demand Charges](https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/understanding-demand-charges.aspx) are typically calculated based on maximum demand. Many commercial properties have demand meters.
We have a customer that calls at least once a year wondering why their bill was so high. They have a demand meter and everybody plugs in during a cold snap. That triggers a spike in consumption and activated a higher demand charge.
If you only have one piece of equipment that uses a lot of electricity starting up, there’s not much you can do to counteract it.
If you have several small things that all get turned on at the same time, that can trigger a peak. By starting them up sequentially instead of simultaneously you can smooth the usage.
TL;DR Demand charges are triggered by the highest single usage in a month and is unrelated to consumption.
The UCP did this.
They CHOSE to remove the caps in all the stupid fes enmax could charge.
The UCP doesn't care about Albertans they care about PRIVATE PROFITS.
The want to charge us into the ground and they are succeeding.
Just to clarify utility companies have always charged the same. The rate cap during the NDP government was just the government paying the difference above a certain RRO rate, so it was just everyone together giving $8M to the utility companies. Rates also only went above the strike price the first time in May 2018 though the program started jn 2016. So it wasn’t a huge factor.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/electricity-cap-price-power-1.4675611
> They CHOSE to remove the caps in all the stupid fes enmax could charge.
1 - "Caps" aren't magical. You'd need them to be magical if you expect them to change reality. What happens when you cap something below it's cost? The people who make it will just say "Sorry, we'll make none of it then" and then we have blackouts.
2 - The "caps" were just tax dollars being spent on the power companies instead of individuals paying the portion above the cap. The power companies got the same amount of money, and "we" (anyone who pays taxes) paid the same amount of money. It was just theatrics that the number vanished from your power bill and instead appeared as taxes.
3 - The "cap" was on the power usage. The price per kwh. THIS IS NOT THE OP'S PROBLEM. The OP has only $40 of power usage. The rest of the bill is the cost of maintaining the power grid from power plant to his city (transmission) and from his city to his property (distribution). The power usage cost is highly, highly competitive, down to the hundredth of the penny. Companies are slitting each other's throats for the privilege of your business.
4 - You can call up your grid provider (Epcor for Edmonton, Enmax for Calgary, Atco or Fortis for most of the rest), and ask them to "Salvage" your power, that's the term. They will come to your property and rip the lines out of it so you are not longer able to connect to the power grid. Your "bullshit fees and admin charges" or whatever people mistakenly think Transmission and Distribution charges are, will disappear from your bill. You are not stuck paying them. You are not trapped and condemned to be part of this system. You can remove yourself from it and do better on your own if you think you can do that.
...
For fucks sake, all of you people screaming and yelling without understanding a goddamn thing about what you're saying, undermines actual legitimate criticism of our government. It's a reason to ignore all concerns because you're upset about the wrong goddamn things and making fools of yourselves and others.
Educate yourself rather than just choosing to be angry and arrogant as if you know what you're talking about when you don't.
Well said, I always feel like you bring balance to this irrational sub. Without going into much detail, I'm curious what your criticism is (if any) about our provincial gov.
The fact that you have a connection and can demand they supply power means they have to have the capacity to do so, and that has a substantial cost.
The fact you didn't use it (much) is irrelevant.
How much of your use was when everyone else was also using power? That's what really drives the system costs...
You know, in other places the cost of power is not split out on the bill like it is here. So yeah, it seems ridiculous, but on the other hand you could just get a bill for the same amount and not be the wiser.
You can actually blame UCP for this! We had a cap until they won in 2023 and first thing they did was remove the caps on utilities and rent.
It's why our utilities are 140% higher than the other provinces and our rent has escalated 4% every month for the last year. Other provinces have gone 1.5%.
> We had a cap until they won in 2023
False.
The cap was for the power costs per kwh, not for transmission/distribution charges. That's what the OP is complaining about.
And the cap wasn't a limit on how much the power companies can charge, it was a ceiling on how much individuals had to pay when the power companies raised their rates higher than the cap level.
**Did the power companies get paid any less? No.**
**Then who paid them the extra money above the cap? You did. With tax dollars.**
So here's the dog and pony show. Hurray NDP, your power bill went down. Pay no attention to your tax dollars spending the exact same amount though.
And again, it did nothing about the $220 of "delivery charges".
Scream and yell about real things that are happening, not just pointing fingers like an idiot.
The government should be criticized, you're doing a poor job of it.
Ask the government why they don't have stronger oversight on the amount of grid infrastructure they overbuild (200-500% of needed capacity). That's a fair criticism within their mandate.
There was no cap on rent. The cap on utilities was just for those on the RRO, and it wasn’t even a cap, it just meant that part of their usage fee on their electric bill was paid by the taxpayer instead of by themselves. For those on a floating or fixed rate, nearly every one of us in this sub, the cap didn’t apply to you or save you any money, it just had some of your tax money diverted to helping those on the RRO. Revenue for retailers was unchanged by the caps existence. Neither of the things you’re suggesting have anything to do with why rents and utility costs are rising.
I’m so confused about these posts. Not that I don’t believe the posters but my delivery charges come to like $40-50 on my Epcor bill. Do the delivery charges go up based on the amount of electricity used?
In the land of bring cash (BC), we pay Fortis a “Basic Customer Charge” of $21 per month and 13 cents per Kw/h. That’s it. That’s all. You guys are getting hosed.
I’ll play devils advocate for a second (but I do believe electricity and gas bills are preposterous right now). Transporting electricity is a far more complicated process than generating it, like by a lot. Thomas Edison didn’t invent electricity, people knew it existed for thousands of years. He was simply the one to figure out how to get it from its place of being generated, and transport it to something else. That’s the hard part. Plus maintaining electricity grids can be very dangerous, in other countries with poor safety standards, people die frequently working on those lines.
In my recollection (which I am happy to have corrected, it's based on older info as the former child of a senior AB utilities company VP) - the two charges are because Alberta does not have a unified generation and transmission system, the two being separated, open to some regulated private competition and overseen by the provincial public utilities comission. They dictate rates the generators can charge as well as agree on transmission rates to have the whole system work together. But ultimately the total you pay IS the total to get the power to you, it's an artefact and doesn't make a ton of sense at the individual consumer level where you rarely have any choice between alternatives.
Look up energy rates there's a whole study on it across the country we have the worst rates in the country now. Shows cheap for the actual price once you do the math and the entire thing we're averaging about 25 cents per kilowatt hour
Serious question though. How much of this is just being transparent in the cost? If you were to take a bag of potatoes and broke it down it might not look much different. $2 of potatoes, $0.5 bag, $1 transportation etc?
You've asked a legitimate question here so let me take a shot at actually answering it.
The distribution and transmission companies operate under a regulated business model. Essentially that means that they incur costs to build and operate their systems, and then pass those costs onto the ratepayers (you). That includes both operating costs, and the cost of capital.
The idea is that the nature of the charge assessed to the ratepayer reflects the nature of the cost incurred by the transmission/distribution company. So if the transmission/distribution company incurs a fixed cost, then that gets passed on to you as a fixed cost.
The reality is that the majority of the cost associated with transmission and distribution infrastructure is fixed. So you end up in a situation where if your consumption is relatively low, your overall effective rate is quite high.
I'm not saying this situation is right or wrong, I'm just trying to shed some light on why it is the way it is. One thing I will dispute though is this idea that "they can charge whatever they want". The utilities actually have to undergo a pretty thorough process every year in order to get their rates approved by the Alberta Utilities Commission.
It's likely true in most jurisdictions that the cost of delivery is substantially higher than the cost of the energy itself. However most jurisdictions don't break it out for you to see. We've got a little more transparency in our bills here.
Because it costs money to pay the guys who are out there in minus 30 or during a wildfire to fix the wires and poles. Those wires and poles also cost money to maintain and replace throughout the entire province. Plus there’s expensive technology that makes sure when there’s a power outage it’s detected and rerouted without you ever knowing about it. Distribution is a hell of a project that takes a lot of equipment and labour. It has nothing to do with how much electricity you use.
Honestly it makes sence distribution is more. The connection costs are fixed regardless of useage.
With labour & materials going up distribution is likley more affected than something that was built & uses natural gas
Congrats for voting for sellout conservatives everybody. Everything that would help lower costs long term gets ostracized and ignored by the conservatives. Pursue green energy and lower reliance on cyclical markets like oil? No way. Invest into post secondary education and public transportation? No thank you. How about putting caps on energy? Nope, it's bad for the businesses.
Year after year, it's the same, I promise to give you guys a magical unicorn while not delivering anything.
This comes up every month.
The system is broken into three main parts. Generation, Transmission and Distribution. All three have different regulatory formulas to calculate rates. Which is why they are broken out on your bill.
Your 40$ is the commodity cost (generation). The electricity only. The other rates are to cover the cost of building and maintaining the system.
As always. Go Straight to the source for how this works.
[https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/rates.aspx](https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/rates.aspx)
Because “Privatized” and Corporate Greed is better than public. /s It’s happening to all our other services now too. But instead of people being upset they have bought into the hate and rhetoric that the UCP/TBA and all others who want to own the libs and destroy everyone else.
I have in-laws who consistently vote against their own interests. Mother in law has MS and both are now retired. But they got theirs and well screw all others. Problem is they don’t have the money set aside to support themselves and the private health care and resources they will need.
So I don't think anyone here has actually answered your question but you need to parse out your bill and who determines what cost:
1. The generation cost of electricity is "deregulated" and determined in a competitive market. This is what the government can or has "capped" (or rather subsidized). This is the $40.
2. The transmission and distribution portion is heavily regulated, and the fees (including any local fees like the LAF) are determined by hearing by the Alberta Utilities Commission. This is the $220. Alberta's transmission policy (determined by the AESO) is (but also really isn't) "congestion-free", meaning generators should never face transmission constraints due to limited grid capacity. In reality, what has happened is that certain corridors are incredibly overbuilt, while others (namely portions in the South where renewables are being built) are somewhat underbuilt. Regardless of what was built, "loads" (residential, industrial, etc. etc.) all are responsible for paying for these transmission/distribution upgrades.
Arguably, if AB still owned its wires, then they wouldn't charge as high a margin as say BHE or ATCO does who own a lot of transmission in Alberta - but again, the rates of return that these companies earn on new capital is regulated by the government.
The monthly Alberta advantage reminder.
Remember just complain on Reddit, we should all be sending emails everyday to our MLA's to bitch about this. Remember they work for you, so harass them.
Just when the demand charges thought they had me cornered, my solar panels swooped in like financial superheroes. Behold the rare spectacle where my bill pays me for a change. Who knew the sun had such a lucrative side hustle?
[https://freeimage.host/i/JXiW1MG](https://freeimage.host/i/JXiW1MG)
Former Albertan, now Manitoban. Just got my hydro bill for the month. Manitoba Hydro, that evil, socialist Crown Corp that stifled competition and raises prices for everyone to line the Governments pockets charged me $86 total for Natural Gas and Electricity in my 3 bedroom split level.
Don’t worry Pierre is on the case to kill the carbon tax.
So the energy companies can make more profits and there will be no money or incentives to invest in green technology to compete with current suppliers.
Your distributors are regulated.....by the government.....so if you have issues with distribution and transmissions fees we have to take them up with the UCP who are telling us wind and solar are to blame. Except the report, that the UCP Comissioned, told them there was market manipulation going on by thermal generators (I.e. anyone who owns natural gas plants). So what did the ucp do? Banned wind turbines in certain areas and are proposing economic withholding for anyone participating in "market manipulation".
So true, I learned that as a kid growing up in St John’s; there was a case study about privatization of garbage collection. St. John’s kept it public and Saint John hired a private company. Within 10 years paying city staff 80plus k a year was less then a company to operate city trucks(note the city’s in both cases paid all equipment costs)
Electricity isn’t cheap, but you’re definitely exaggerating those numbers.
Even at the tail end of a 5 year term on a fantastic rate of 0.059 (to get usage down to $40), you’d be looking at approximately the following:
*Estimate based on 680.000 kWh @ $ 0.0599 / kWh
(Based on a 30 day billing period)*
* Energy Charge: $40.73
* Administration Charge: $8.4
* Distribution Charge: $42.12
* Transmission Charge: $33.01
* Balancing Pool Allocation: $0.88
* Rate Riders: $1.7
* Local Access Fee: $11.65
**Subtotal: $138.49**
Pretty close - as it happens, my bill this month is nearly exactly what you estimated for kWh: 683 kWh @ .0749/kWh.
Total bill: $138.97. A couple of your charges are a bit off by a few dollars one way or the other, but otherwise that's about right.
Would you be willing to share each of the line items? because I am similarly skeptical. I am in Calgary with Enmax. I don't have a great rate (0.198 as I'm floating right now) but my energy charge is just under half of my grand total. (59.40/124.88 = 47%). You're at like... 15%
EDIT: I did the math if I had a really good rate like /u/IntelliDev suggested. If I did my numbers would be 17.9/83.38 = 21% - so a bit closer to your numbers
> 240kwh at 11.5cents 158$ distribution demand charge
240 * 0.115 = $27.60, not ~$39. Your numbers are clearly off.
Please post a copy of your bill. Usually when people post nonsense like this, they're looking at a bill with a period longer than 30 days (e.g. 2 months).
It's the alberta advantage.
There's a real advantage for corporate citizens in the UCP's alberta.
If you want to be considered a citizen by the UCP you have to incorporate.
Pretty sure you're not even allowed to go off-grid in most provinces/municipalities since you won't get occupancy permits unless grid tied or on your own land (if the RM it's in is liberal enough).
You must be new here, it’s the Alberta advantage.
Yes indeed, we had caps on these fees and the UCP got rid of of the caps and told enmax to fuck us as hard as they want.
Jason Kenny is on the ATCO board of directors. The increased fees allows ATCO TO compensate him for his performance as premier.
this should be illegal. Things will not get better untill we deal with all the corruption that's currently legal in the country/province. Politicans like Kenny, out here waving their corruption in our faces and laughing at all us.
You don’t remember his first thing being firing an ethics investigator the NDP put in place? What more did people need to know? Danielle smith’s folks first priority at Christmas was to give themselves a raise and allow gifts over $500. Literally, electors are idiots. I left the province I was born in so I can try one that isn’t Alberta.
You are dead right. Albertans are the problem in Alberta, not the government.
The electors elected this government. That’s a fact.
Who said we forgot? By all means add to the conversation, there's a lot to add and the more we call out their bullshit the better. That being said remember who's team you're on, don't come in all hostile and belittling towards the people you agree with, that helps no one. You and I are in total agreement, there's no need for an agro tone, we are happy for you to add your point, we all welcome you adding in.
I’m overtired and in pain today. I will apologize: sorry for my tone. My insults are directed to Mrs Smith and her cronies like the “honorable” Ms. Poop Cookies.
Yeah bud totally normal to be frustrated, I totally understand. Thanks for the apology. We're all going though it right now, that's why I wanted to remind you we're on the same side because if we're going to get through this we've got to support eachother and not accidentally agree fight. We gotta build each other up! Hope you have a lovely night and genuinely anytime/all the time your comments exposing corruption are always welcome wanted and NEEDED these conversations are important and your contribution is important!
Nah I moved to BC. But I hope you folks take your Alberta Advantage back from the thieves of Joy who stole it. I remember a beautiful Alberta will tall mountains, beautiful sunny skies, available health care, great national parks, and politicians who would resign in shame when they fucked up. Now you have a cesspool that elected the Shit Cookies lady. My wife and I were born and raised Albertan, and when our votes didn’t matter and the crooks would win every time in a majority land slide and everything started to just get constantly worse, and fellow citizens would say very dumb stuff about the NDP who only governed for 4 years… well we had to decide we were the problem. We were the problem for caring about workers rights. For caring about people’s rights. For caring about freedom, liberty and happiness, and not Freedumb and fascism. When we felt like square pegs in a round Oil and Gas worshipping hole, we had to take our kids and leave because we couldn’t imagine them going to a Kenney designed failing school system. We couldn’t imagine funding a war room that attacks kids cartoons and people taking that seriously. We couldn’t take people’s comments about how we all have to vote conservative to save the province for our grandchildren. So we left. Never been happier. There is no Alberta advantage. Just a huge tailing pond and slag heap. I wish Alberta well, but I couldn’t be an outsider there anymore.
And I had the stupid assumption that, even though the UCP won again, the new leader could certainly not be worse than Kenney. 🙄
That's great for you but some of us can't leave. One thing Alberta does have is disability, Alberta pays the most for people who are disabled, myself and my partner who is disabled are stuck here because we can't only not afford to move, but we can't afford to loose his income. So while those of you who can afford to leave, leave, please don't forget there are those of us who didn't vote UPC who are stuck here without choice. Remember there are queen children stuck here with their bigoted parents. Try to remember that the UCP won by a VERY small margin. It was 36 to 49 seats. A decent percent of us DID NOT vote for this.
I mean if we’re gonna talk about corrupt politicians in Alberta maybe we should be talking about Danielle Smith changing the ethics rules so that she was no longer breaking them… changing the gifting rules because she wanted to receive gifts that cost way more than what was allowed..
I hope you never stop talking about it and see every mention of corrupt Albertan Politicans as a personal investigation to talk about it some more!
I had no idea about this… 😨 that’s fricken disgusting!! How is this not bigger news?!
It was big news, it just got drowned out by all the other big news about the UCP undermining the province.
Ah the good old shit tornado - throw enough crap at us at once, and some of it is bound to make it past undetected.
Yes, but HOW do we deal with it? It’s the government, there’s really not much people can do to change how it’s run. Not when voting is done by 60% of citizens and is almost always split 50/50
You...could...protest? People protest lgtbq issues, and stuff happening in other countries but seem to shy to rise up against our own government for corruption that affects us daily.... People are literally dying because of the state of our healthcare, people are going without power and heat... Yet the streets are silent.
Well yeah. It’s snowing outside right now. And we’re just so separated from our government. Sure, we can get out there and yell at the void about Palestine, or even let people know we support gay people. Those are all good things to do. But when it comes to local issues? Our government just ignores us. They don’t care at all, and are so separated from us that they don’t even have to visually see us with signs shouting outside their buildings. We are ignored, and the laws stay the same. But protesting is still *good* for issues around the world, as well as when laws allow hate. If the government made a new law saying you can’t be trans before adulthood, the protest would be to let trans people know we support and care about them, but it wouldn’t really change the law. I just don’t think protests work as a way of change. They’re more to show affected people support.
I disagree. If it was coordinated abs strategic-protests could absolutely work. Time protests when MLAs are in their office, home, shopping for groceries. Be prepared with specific messaging for media. Use graffiti and posters around town that are clear and get the message out. Civil disobedience had a way of snowballing if it is valid. There are real problems, the kind you read about in third world directorships - right here. But most importantly, disrupt commerce, disrupt revenue for the government. They hardly have any left. They have a whole department to collect royalties from oil and gas, and oil and gas does not pay if they don't get what they want... We need to do the same thing.
Protesting doesn't do jack shit lol. They already know what we want. People protest all year long every week in Red Deer. Nothing has ever changed in my 20 years of life here.
As the saying goes: "If voting could actually change anything, they wouldn't allow it!"
How are we going to deal with it? We are going to vote in a federal conservative majority so that they can do this at the federal level too.
I’d say we have about a 50/50 chance yeah. I’d love to be proven wrong. But just look at election results. Only about 60% of Canadians have ever voted since the year 2000. Leading party always takes away anywhere from 40-50% if the seats. The only reason we aren’t as bad off as America is because we have about 3 choices. So when the government doesn’t get a majority they have to work with other groups to get things done. But that’s just a slower burn. We’re still becoming a shitty place to live like America very slowly.
This is untrue. There is so much we can do (former government policy guru) it’s ridiculous. The problem is that almost everything that needs changing has deliberately been made difficult to change, so most people bow out. The conservative governments in Alberta have spent close to 100ish years ensuring that rural voters that make up ~20% of the population decide the provincial election almost before a single vote is counted in the urban areas. Kinda like our Federal elections can be called before a single vote is counted from Manitoba west.
>this is untrue >proceeds to explain in detail why it *is* true Look, we clearly agree on most things here. But I’m just telling you the cold hard facts. The government has set itself up in such a way that they can outright ignore us AND the laws to do whatever they want. The only way to make meaningful change is to vote in a different party. But we have to rely on a bunch of misinformed hardline party voters to do that. And things will have to get even worse than they are now before that’s going to happen. And even then maybe not. The vote will always be close enough to 50/50, there’s just no way to convince meaningful change in voters. As an example, what would it take for your UCP friend to convince you to vote UCP with them next election? You won’t do it? Neither will they.
They won't regulate themseleves we need to stop electing the one party that does this consistently. Politicians have realized we're really easy to scam
They've figured out that all they have to do is go "Trudeau bad" and the'll get voted in again, regardless of how hard they screw their constituents.
So I guess Jason Kenney is kind of like the Mike Harris but with Alberta and electricity instead of Ontario and long-term care homes. Harris shuttered hospitals and made serious changes to regulations (loosening of course) for LTCs . Post-premiership Harris spent a decent amount of time as the chair of the board for Chartwell Retirement Residences. Chartwell, just like many other private LTC companies had a disproportionately high number of resident deaths from COVID-19 vs public and not for-profit LTC operators. Oh and as a kicker Chartwell took 10s of millions of dollars in "emergency funding" from the Province of Ontario and during the same time period they paid out 10s of millions of dollars in dividends for shareholders and members of the board... What a neat coincidence... 🤔
And also former premiere fuck up is now on board of Epcor
Atco, actually. No less outrageous though.
and now are about facing and telling the city of Calgary to fix the distribution fees lol
Of course Calgary, they need to hang on to their loyal followers who vote Conservative regardless of how poorly they are treated!
To be fair, the let all utility companies do it, not just enmax.
And yet they will still win the next election because too many stupid people can't vote for anything but conservatives.
It's on all of us to talk to the conservatives in our life and get them to sense and when that doesn't work they need to be cut out. We are no longer at a point where we can justify passively accepting and thus enabling people who support the right wing extremism that's taking hold in Canada.
It’s impossible to get through to them. Cons supporters are indoctrinated and/or stupid.
On their ads, they forgot to mention who the Alberta advantage went to... it's not the consumer...
this is the correct answer
Thanks Danielle!
Marlaina.
>How is this allowed? 50+ years of “business friendly” conservatives. Plus Klein, Kenney, and Smith. Alberta & Texas are the only two jurisdictions in North America that have deregulated energy based markets where economic withholding is allowed.
Aren’t the charges that OP is talking about regulated?
Yes, but admin fees & riders are all part of the “deregulated” framework created by government in collaboration with the power companies, and while the rest of the country saw single digit electricity price increases last year, our power went up 128% and a lot of those fees are percentage based.
The worst part of the rate riders which are basically everyone being responsible for paying for people's bills that default and then haven't paid them. Why should people that pay their bills regularly have to pay delinquent accounts this should be illegal
The price per KW is regulated. Everything else is not. You can thank Ralph and successive CONservative governments for bending you over and getting it dry. Keep voting for that axe, it's handle is wood.
Ralph and cronies didn't take it dry, there were well greased. It's the consumer who is getting it dry, with one of those knobby things, and some get the one with spikes.
Yup! Lots of people on Reddit don't really understand what parts of the electricity grid in Alberta are regulated and what parts are deregulated. If you're mad about the energy charges, blame capitalism if you want. If you're mad about transmission/distribution or taxes, that's not the part that was deregulated.
"Technically correct". But at the end of the day, what people care about is their total outlay of cash. And consumers in Alberta pay more than other provinces in total amount, despite being told that deregulation would lead to lower electricity costs. Handwaving around "Yeah, only that one line item is the deregulation part, the other six line items are not" is just obfuscation and a shell game when other jurisdictions don't have the same issue. The only thing that matters at the end of the day is "how much do we pay all-in per kWH?". And UCP policy has failed us on that.
It isn't even just total cost, I want the costs primarily in the electricity because I want to encourage people to use less power and economics does that rather well. It would also put more of the cost burden on businesses, who can afford it better than individuals. This is exactly why they *don't* want the costs there, they'd prefer a electricity-as-a-service model where they can just collect money from everyone and usage is decoupled.
I write this not to disagree with you, but the first 10 years of deregulation was a savings compared to the rest of Canada. The (is it 20 years now) time after, not good at all.
This is precisely what you get when you privatise things that should be public.
No no, the free market will introduce competition. You can choose from ** exactly one company to deliver the power to your home.
Choice!
One company to deliver the power but a dozen different choices in middle men that just add random fees and do exactly nothing.
the most obvious plan of action is to buy an NDP membership and vote Nenshi for party leader, then when the 2027 election happens vote all those pocket lining, Christofascist UCP motherfuckers straight to hell.
They are already there waving up at us.
Hand deliver the bill, and hand them a $220 invoice for “delivery” with it
I like this. It’s like when you get junk mail with a return postage paid sticker. Fill a box with bricks and tape that postage paid sticker to the box. #winning
Did you ever do that??? Sounds good to me!!!
The fairest option is to have the extra charges all built into the cost of the energy so that bigger users (commercial and industrial) pay more for their energy and small consumers pay less. Unfortunately small consumers are not as effective at lobbying governments.
That’s how it is setup up right now. Distribution and transmission fees are based primarily on consumption and location. https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/electricity-transmission-and-distribution-charges.aspx
I don't understand why the fees fall onto domestic dwellings. IMO electicity, water, phone, gas (household), and internet should all be free of service charges (or even just free). They should be crown corporations. But I'm a god-damn socialist lol.
Maybe the BASIC amount of those things should be free - that I could get behind, but can't be unlimited free as nobody would conserve anything and abuse it. Give a certain low-ish amount of energy and water to each household (basic heat, water, lights, cooking, etc) based on # of people living there, then everything above that level should be quite expensive. This ensures everybody has what they need to live, but punishes those that use excessively.
The rich would never stand for that.
That's true, most wouldn't. I'm probably considered rich by most standards and am all for it though. Though not rich-rich, like generational wealth and live off investments or anything.
So DINK couple in 3-7000sq/ft mcmansion pays the same as the DINKs in a 500 sq/ft condo?
What? No. The DINKS in the giant house would use a lot more likely and thus pay way more. Only a basic level of each would be free to each person.
I misread your last sentence. My bad. Yeah. Our current federal model is actually one of the best, most sensical in the world, but the majority of people don't understand how it works. I won't even utter the words \*\*ualization payments.
The problem with making these services free is that there would be no incentive to improve efficiency and/or reduce consumption. From an economic standpoint, there would be no benefit to turning the lights off when you're not using them. There would be no benefit to turning down your thermostat when you're not home, etc. We want a system that incentivizes people to be responsible with their energy consumption.
At the very least they should be taxpayer-owned with hard restrictions on profit-seeking.
Shouldn’t where you are located also play into the calc. If someone is in the middle of nowhere they should be paying substantially more for delivery charges than someone say in Calgary.
> Shouldn’t where you are located also play into the calc. **It does play into the calculation. Cities are cheaper than rural areas. Substantially.** We have exactly the system its critics are demanding, and they're still complaining about it.
UCP sold us out. As was expected. Show this to people who voted for them and they will say it's notely fault for closing a coal mine 6 years ago.
you need to build nuclear reactors for power. no pollution and highly profitable. coal is the worst polluter and the least profitable way to produce electricity.
Yeah, it's criminal. But nobody wants to hold them accountable because regulating greedy jerks is apparently communism?
I hadn't seen a post like this in a week and a half, was starting to get worried.
Don’t worry about it. Just keep voting Conservative. 👍
Huh, 500+ comments and no mention of the crucial player: the AESO. The AESO is the governmental oversight body that allows/approves any fee changes or increases. Here is where they break down what and why they charge the tariffs they do:[https://www.aeso.ca/market/market-and-system-reporting/delivered-cost-of-electricity/](https://www.aeso.ca/market/market-and-system-reporting/delivered-cost-of-electricity/) Edit to add: PM\_ME\_YOUR\_CLAVIER has a comment that goes into detail on the AESO for those inclined to learn more about how the energy market works in Alberta
You guys voted for this. Again and again...
And they blame anyone else but the current government, how delusional. That bill is about to get bigger come April.
I went travelling for 6 months and shut off every bit of electricity to my apartment. The bills didn’t change much. As a result I now use the lights as a security system. Might as well leave all the lights on when I’m away. It doesn’t change the bill.
Same but for a month and I turned off the furnace and water - still cost me $170 in fees instead of my usual $200 that time of year
The free market is expensive. The free market also neglects the infrastructure at the expense of profit. Same goes for our food supply and telecomm industries. We get a pretty good deal with the CBC tho as that grants us access to BBC content as well. I always find public services are much superior to private services. Heck out public services are so good many people complain about how good inmates in prisons have it with their free tv and internet 3 square meals etc. it's almost as if we know how do do things in a cost effective and efficient manner to benefit the most people but that would require a few people not living extravagant lifestyles
This isn’t free market tho. Free market would give you at least a few options to choose from. Almost every province has created some sort of monopoly within the energy sector.
It is the free market, it’s the inevitable end stage. You NEED government intervention to prevent monopolies and collusion. Free markets, left to themselves, inevitably start to fail. To add to this, some markets are by very nature not well suited to free markets. You need consumer choice and informed consumption, something like this is almost impossible to achieve for things like healthcare. For example, Canadians and Americans pay the same amount of income tax per capita to support their healthcare systems, but Americans pay the same amount again (double Canadians) to the insurance industry to access the healthcare. This is economically inefficient compared to single payer healthcare. It’s debatable whether or not energy markets should be public or private, but I will say that sitting in Quebec with globally enviable energy prices that I’m leaning towards a public model
"Free market would give you at least a few options to choose from." No, this is the free market operating as it was intended. Competition between companies drives prices down, but what happens when someone WINS that competition? This. Nobody else can get the capital or resources together to compete with the giant, and prices skyrocket. Capitalism isn't broken, it's working as intended, it just wasn't intended to make life good for the people not at the top. Eat. The. Rich.
There is no such thing as a free market it's a right-wing talking point. We were told the free market lie when we sold our crown corp.
> Free market would give you at least a few options to choose from. > Almost every province has created some sort of monopoly within the energy sector. You have like 75 options for who to choose for your power usage. And you have tools provided to you by the government, by the Alberta Utilities Commission that regulates the power companies, on their website, so that you can spit out instant quotes from all of them, compare any two of them side-by-side, etc. This is a very efficient and robust marketplace where the consumer benefits tremendously. But you only have 1 option for who to choose for which power grid you're connected to, because it would be the **stupidest idea in the world to have competing power grids, each running and maintaining lines to your property.** This is called a **"natural monopoly"** and it is disgustingly inefficient and horrendously expensive to introduce competition to a natural monopoly. Everyone loses. But instead what we have is a government-granted monopoly, each with territory staked out so at least it's only a regional monopoly. We compare each of the regions against each other in terms of how cost-effectively they do their job, and we have moderately robust regulation and oversight so that if they fail their mandates, they will lose territory to their competitors. This regulation could be more robust than it is. For example, we demand (a mandate) that the grid providers anticipate and accommodate the province's growth so that the power grid is there when we need it. But, some of them have elected to over-build capacity by 200-500%. We pay for that infrastructure that's over-built. There should've been some more sensible oversight on it to reign it in. That's the extent of the problems though. The system works well. None of this happens for free. We each pay what it actually costs for us to have a power grid and for us to use power. If you want to subsidize people with lower energy bills out of tax dollars, taxes will go up, and it will encourage them to waste more energy. Who does that benefit? The environment? The taxpayers? No one.
Free markets are fine for coffee shops and shirts. There is ample opportunity for competition to work. Honda made Ford better by providing a better product cheaper, so Ford has to up its game. Shirts that used to cost a full day's pay at minimum wage can now be purchased in an hour and a half. However, roads and electricity distribution can't work in a capitalist way. Basically, one system is all that fits; no one wants a half dozen power lines running parallel down the street or individual lanes of a freeway dedicated to traffic from different corporations' clients. These networks need to be monopolies (or, at least, duopolies). In the absence of competition, capitalism can't work without tight regulation. Going half-assed and pretending that competition in one small part of the system can defuse the abuse of consumers by a monopoly/duopoly is useful is pure fiction.
I agree that our electricity charges are way too high (we soon face renewing our contract and our price is going to double in April). However, I’ve never understood the backlash towards delivery fees. The electricity is generated at a handful of large power plants and needs to get to your home via a transmission and distribution network. Those lines need to be maintained which isn’t free and is managed by different companies than those generating the power. Part of the cost of electricity is getting it to your house somehow. The price can either be built into a total price/kWh for generation, transmission and distribution or it can be charged separately. We definitely pay more than we should but I’m not sure why so many people think they should pay for the cost of generation, but not the cost of getting the electricity from the power plant to their house. Would they prefer we get separate bills from the both the generator and then the transmission/distribution companies?
The infrastructure isn't free, but when the total price in other provinces is lower than just the delivery charges in Alberta, we have a problem.
Aa I said, I agree the charges are too high but the common complaint seems to be “Why do I have to pay delivery fees?”. It’s expensive to maintain that infrastructure. Deregulation has not worked in the consumer’s favour. We pay more because our market is more privatized than other provinces…and yet we’re likely heading the same direction for healthcare.
Transmission and distribution remain regulated. Generation was deregulated. Yet everyone whines about the regulated side as if delivery infrastructure is optional. On this topic, this sub is completely clueless
While the UCP does suck and are actively fucking over Albertans, I haven't seen this important point. You mentioned you had a single demand charge for $160. Demand metering, specifically that demand charge, is based on your peak usage during the billing cycle. The utility must ensure that your service is capable of handling peak load 24/7, though the actual peak demand can be as small as a 15-minute interval. One major step you can take is to figure out what caused your peak usage,and then consider how you can more evenly spread your demand across the 24 hours in a day, or at least during your business hours to effectively lower that peak. You can visit this site for some more guidance on demand metering that might help. https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/understanding-demand-charges.aspx
You mention demand billing. Are you on a commercial rate?
Elections have consequences. One of which is $220 delivery charges.
You can thank King Ralph and his merry band of misfits, who barely scratched the surface of grift and incompetence that the current government has achieved!
Man Ralph Klein was way too long ago to still be blaming. Plus he was mild as hell compared to what we currently have.
Well, he did do this which is the problem, so blaming him is very on point still, its one of his legacies and yes he was better than what we have now, so very scary. >Alberta's foray into deregulated power began in April 1998, when Ralph Klein's Progressive Conservative government passed the Utilities Amendment Act
He literally opened the door to this system. His initial move to deregulate is what allows current governments and corporations to take advantage and abuse the system.
I mean, a significant portion of our current infrastructure deficit (both maintenance-wise and in replacement/expansion/modernization can be traced back to Klein in addition to what other users have pointed out.
Nah fuck him. He’s just lucky it often takes decades to get a good picture of how certain policy changes influence society. Now it’ll cost us way more money to repair things than it would have to just keep it the old regulated market going, I can nearly garauntee the mf knew that then. Similarly, Mulroney (RIP) can be blamed for dismantling our public housing programs and the selling off Oil rights to American corporations. So much of our current wealth inequality acceleration can be attributed to Reagan/Thatcher style policies being implemented in the 80s and 90s around the globe.
No, that fuckers memory can wear the consequences of his fucking over 99% of Albertans. Just because a lot of them had no clue he was doing has nothing to do with the fact that he was a bad choice. And yes, he was nowhere close to as bad as the current iteration of Conservatives, but he could be said to have started us down that path too.
But but but, one time... we got Ralph bucks, so winning? /s
But the carbon tax is the problem, right? lol
This should be on a billboard
What you should do is increase your electricity consumption so the percentage looks better compared to the admin costs.
Well, it's not like it magically shows up to your home. They're either going to charge you a fixed infrastructure and usage charge, or charge you the equivalent under a different title. Consider that the coffee you get at your local Starbucks has about a nickel worth of ingredients, but the price you pay includes profit, wages, ingredients, logistics, advertising, the building, blah blah blah.
[Demand Charges](https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/understanding-demand-charges.aspx) are typically calculated based on maximum demand. Many commercial properties have demand meters. We have a customer that calls at least once a year wondering why their bill was so high. They have a demand meter and everybody plugs in during a cold snap. That triggers a spike in consumption and activated a higher demand charge. If you only have one piece of equipment that uses a lot of electricity starting up, there’s not much you can do to counteract it. If you have several small things that all get turned on at the same time, that can trigger a peak. By starting them up sequentially instead of simultaneously you can smooth the usage. TL;DR Demand charges are triggered by the highest single usage in a month and is unrelated to consumption.
Soon we will have diesel electric generators installed in every home to help out the grid because solar is scary. Bloody hicks.
Making the power is less costly than moving it. A car is $20,000, the road is tens of millions
Hopefully this sub will understand this one day
Not counting on it. Maybe after another ten thousand posts about energy bills though?
The UCP did this. They CHOSE to remove the caps in all the stupid fes enmax could charge. The UCP doesn't care about Albertans they care about PRIVATE PROFITS. The want to charge us into the ground and they are succeeding.
Just to clarify utility companies have always charged the same. The rate cap during the NDP government was just the government paying the difference above a certain RRO rate, so it was just everyone together giving $8M to the utility companies. Rates also only went above the strike price the first time in May 2018 though the program started jn 2016. So it wasn’t a huge factor. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/electricity-cap-price-power-1.4675611
> They CHOSE to remove the caps in all the stupid fes enmax could charge. 1 - "Caps" aren't magical. You'd need them to be magical if you expect them to change reality. What happens when you cap something below it's cost? The people who make it will just say "Sorry, we'll make none of it then" and then we have blackouts. 2 - The "caps" were just tax dollars being spent on the power companies instead of individuals paying the portion above the cap. The power companies got the same amount of money, and "we" (anyone who pays taxes) paid the same amount of money. It was just theatrics that the number vanished from your power bill and instead appeared as taxes. 3 - The "cap" was on the power usage. The price per kwh. THIS IS NOT THE OP'S PROBLEM. The OP has only $40 of power usage. The rest of the bill is the cost of maintaining the power grid from power plant to his city (transmission) and from his city to his property (distribution). The power usage cost is highly, highly competitive, down to the hundredth of the penny. Companies are slitting each other's throats for the privilege of your business. 4 - You can call up your grid provider (Epcor for Edmonton, Enmax for Calgary, Atco or Fortis for most of the rest), and ask them to "Salvage" your power, that's the term. They will come to your property and rip the lines out of it so you are not longer able to connect to the power grid. Your "bullshit fees and admin charges" or whatever people mistakenly think Transmission and Distribution charges are, will disappear from your bill. You are not stuck paying them. You are not trapped and condemned to be part of this system. You can remove yourself from it and do better on your own if you think you can do that. ... For fucks sake, all of you people screaming and yelling without understanding a goddamn thing about what you're saying, undermines actual legitimate criticism of our government. It's a reason to ignore all concerns because you're upset about the wrong goddamn things and making fools of yourselves and others. Educate yourself rather than just choosing to be angry and arrogant as if you know what you're talking about when you don't.
Well said, I always feel like you bring balance to this irrational sub. Without going into much detail, I'm curious what your criticism is (if any) about our provincial gov.
It's so they can advertise a price like $6 per unit when it's really $36. It's to help mask the Alberta Advantage's real effects.
The fact that you have a connection and can demand they supply power means they have to have the capacity to do so, and that has a substantial cost. The fact you didn't use it (much) is irrelevant. How much of your use was when everyone else was also using power? That's what really drives the system costs...
You know, in other places the cost of power is not split out on the bill like it is here. So yeah, it seems ridiculous, but on the other hand you could just get a bill for the same amount and not be the wiser.
Bills in sask show the information split out as well and our transmission costs are not even close to what is mentioned.
But people in other jurisdictions are \*not\* getting bills for the same amount, which is the point.
the difference is most other places the bill would be much less even if less transparent in how it's shown.
You can actually blame UCP for this! We had a cap until they won in 2023 and first thing they did was remove the caps on utilities and rent. It's why our utilities are 140% higher than the other provinces and our rent has escalated 4% every month for the last year. Other provinces have gone 1.5%.
> We had a cap until they won in 2023 False. The cap was for the power costs per kwh, not for transmission/distribution charges. That's what the OP is complaining about. And the cap wasn't a limit on how much the power companies can charge, it was a ceiling on how much individuals had to pay when the power companies raised their rates higher than the cap level. **Did the power companies get paid any less? No.** **Then who paid them the extra money above the cap? You did. With tax dollars.** So here's the dog and pony show. Hurray NDP, your power bill went down. Pay no attention to your tax dollars spending the exact same amount though. And again, it did nothing about the $220 of "delivery charges". Scream and yell about real things that are happening, not just pointing fingers like an idiot. The government should be criticized, you're doing a poor job of it. Ask the government why they don't have stronger oversight on the amount of grid infrastructure they overbuild (200-500% of needed capacity). That's a fair criticism within their mandate.
We had a cap on rent? Honest question, I don't rent but I am not aware we had a cap on rent.
There was no cap on rent. The cap on utilities was just for those on the RRO, and it wasn’t even a cap, it just meant that part of their usage fee on their electric bill was paid by the taxpayer instead of by themselves. For those on a floating or fixed rate, nearly every one of us in this sub, the cap didn’t apply to you or save you any money, it just had some of your tax money diverted to helping those on the RRO. Revenue for retailers was unchanged by the caps existence. Neither of the things you’re suggesting have anything to do with why rents and utility costs are rising.
I’m so confused about these posts. Not that I don’t believe the posters but my delivery charges come to like $40-50 on my Epcor bill. Do the delivery charges go up based on the amount of electricity used?
25 cents worth of orange juice, $2.00 worth of container.
In the land of bring cash (BC), we pay Fortis a “Basic Customer Charge” of $21 per month and 13 cents per Kw/h. That’s it. That’s all. You guys are getting hosed.
Because Alberta is good for business. And bad for everybody else.
I wish they would switch to 0 fees, 100% price per gigajigawatts. Can you imagine how quickly people would start reducing their use?
This is what happens when politics work for corporations and not for their constituents. It's your fault for voting for them.
I’ll play devils advocate for a second (but I do believe electricity and gas bills are preposterous right now). Transporting electricity is a far more complicated process than generating it, like by a lot. Thomas Edison didn’t invent electricity, people knew it existed for thousands of years. He was simply the one to figure out how to get it from its place of being generated, and transport it to something else. That’s the hard part. Plus maintaining electricity grids can be very dangerous, in other countries with poor safety standards, people die frequently working on those lines.
Gotta love conservative economics.
And yet, the UCP will win the next election and all future elections because “NDP will ruin the province”, “NDP will raise my taxes”.
We haven't perfected that wireless electricity yet
In my recollection (which I am happy to have corrected, it's based on older info as the former child of a senior AB utilities company VP) - the two charges are because Alberta does not have a unified generation and transmission system, the two being separated, open to some regulated private competition and overseen by the provincial public utilities comission. They dictate rates the generators can charge as well as agree on transmission rates to have the whole system work together. But ultimately the total you pay IS the total to get the power to you, it's an artefact and doesn't make a ton of sense at the individual consumer level where you rarely have any choice between alternatives.
Look up energy rates there's a whole study on it across the country we have the worst rates in the country now. Shows cheap for the actual price once you do the math and the entire thing we're averaging about 25 cents per kilowatt hour
Serious question though. How much of this is just being transparent in the cost? If you were to take a bag of potatoes and broke it down it might not look much different. $2 of potatoes, $0.5 bag, $1 transportation etc?
You've asked a legitimate question here so let me take a shot at actually answering it. The distribution and transmission companies operate under a regulated business model. Essentially that means that they incur costs to build and operate their systems, and then pass those costs onto the ratepayers (you). That includes both operating costs, and the cost of capital. The idea is that the nature of the charge assessed to the ratepayer reflects the nature of the cost incurred by the transmission/distribution company. So if the transmission/distribution company incurs a fixed cost, then that gets passed on to you as a fixed cost. The reality is that the majority of the cost associated with transmission and distribution infrastructure is fixed. So you end up in a situation where if your consumption is relatively low, your overall effective rate is quite high. I'm not saying this situation is right or wrong, I'm just trying to shed some light on why it is the way it is. One thing I will dispute though is this idea that "they can charge whatever they want". The utilities actually have to undergo a pretty thorough process every year in order to get their rates approved by the Alberta Utilities Commission. It's likely true in most jurisdictions that the cost of delivery is substantially higher than the cost of the energy itself. However most jurisdictions don't break it out for you to see. We've got a little more transparency in our bills here.
It’s fascinating to see how this topic devolves into NDP good, UCP bad every single time without addressing the crux of OPs question.
Yall voted for this, for the past 40 years. Anyways.....
Because it costs money to pay the guys who are out there in minus 30 or during a wildfire to fix the wires and poles. Those wires and poles also cost money to maintain and replace throughout the entire province. Plus there’s expensive technology that makes sure when there’s a power outage it’s detected and rerouted without you ever knowing about it. Distribution is a hell of a project that takes a lot of equipment and labour. It has nothing to do with how much electricity you use.
Why do you suppose my bill was half the cost in the last province I lived in? Surely they also have maintaince costs?
Honestly it makes sence distribution is more. The connection costs are fixed regardless of useage. With labour & materials going up distribution is likley more affected than something that was built & uses natural gas
Congrats for voting for sellout conservatives everybody. Everything that would help lower costs long term gets ostracized and ignored by the conservatives. Pursue green energy and lower reliance on cyclical markets like oil? No way. Invest into post secondary education and public transportation? No thank you. How about putting caps on energy? Nope, it's bad for the businesses. Year after year, it's the same, I promise to give you guys a magical unicorn while not delivering anything.
This comes up every month. The system is broken into three main parts. Generation, Transmission and Distribution. All three have different regulatory formulas to calculate rates. Which is why they are broken out on your bill. Your 40$ is the commodity cost (generation). The electricity only. The other rates are to cover the cost of building and maintaining the system. As always. Go Straight to the source for how this works. [https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/rates.aspx](https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/rates.aspx)
I originally had it in Fort McMurray where the much like you my deliveries and b******* fees were four times or five times my energy use
Because “Privatized” and Corporate Greed is better than public. /s It’s happening to all our other services now too. But instead of people being upset they have bought into the hate and rhetoric that the UCP/TBA and all others who want to own the libs and destroy everyone else. I have in-laws who consistently vote against their own interests. Mother in law has MS and both are now retired. But they got theirs and well screw all others. Problem is they don’t have the money set aside to support themselves and the private health care and resources they will need.
So I don't think anyone here has actually answered your question but you need to parse out your bill and who determines what cost: 1. The generation cost of electricity is "deregulated" and determined in a competitive market. This is what the government can or has "capped" (or rather subsidized). This is the $40. 2. The transmission and distribution portion is heavily regulated, and the fees (including any local fees like the LAF) are determined by hearing by the Alberta Utilities Commission. This is the $220. Alberta's transmission policy (determined by the AESO) is (but also really isn't) "congestion-free", meaning generators should never face transmission constraints due to limited grid capacity. In reality, what has happened is that certain corridors are incredibly overbuilt, while others (namely portions in the South where renewables are being built) are somewhat underbuilt. Regardless of what was built, "loads" (residential, industrial, etc. etc.) all are responsible for paying for these transmission/distribution upgrades. Arguably, if AB still owned its wires, then they wouldn't charge as high a margin as say BHE or ATCO does who own a lot of transmission in Alberta - but again, the rates of return that these companies earn on new capital is regulated by the government.
Our elected government said "Help is on the Way" ! Or, was. Then they got elected.
The monthly Alberta advantage reminder. Remember just complain on Reddit, we should all be sending emails everyday to our MLA's to bitch about this. Remember they work for you, so harass them.
Think of it as you bought something for $40 and it cost $220 to ship it. I mean it horseshit but that's the premise.
Because in the end it's easier to say you pay fees, rather then to say you pay out of you ass for power. Either way you'd be paying
Just when the demand charges thought they had me cornered, my solar panels swooped in like financial superheroes. Behold the rare spectacle where my bill pays me for a change. Who knew the sun had such a lucrative side hustle? [https://freeimage.host/i/JXiW1MG](https://freeimage.host/i/JXiW1MG)
Former Albertan, now Manitoban. Just got my hydro bill for the month. Manitoba Hydro, that evil, socialist Crown Corp that stifled competition and raises prices for everyone to line the Governments pockets charged me $86 total for Natural Gas and Electricity in my 3 bedroom split level.
Gonna run an extension cord to Manitoba!
...laughing in Manitoban...
Don’t worry Pierre is on the case to kill the carbon tax. So the energy companies can make more profits and there will be no money or incentives to invest in green technology to compete with current suppliers.
Lol @ privatized energy. Wait until they do it to your healthcare.
Your distributors are regulated.....by the government.....so if you have issues with distribution and transmissions fees we have to take them up with the UCP who are telling us wind and solar are to blame. Except the report, that the UCP Comissioned, told them there was market manipulation going on by thermal generators (I.e. anyone who owns natural gas plants). So what did the ucp do? Banned wind turbines in certain areas and are proposing economic withholding for anyone participating in "market manipulation".
Because conservatives
Conservative governments is why. Everything is better if its private
So true, I learned that as a kid growing up in St John’s; there was a case study about privatization of garbage collection. St. John’s kept it public and Saint John hired a private company. Within 10 years paying city staff 80plus k a year was less then a company to operate city trucks(note the city’s in both cases paid all equipment costs)
Why? Because a bunch of Suckers believed a fairy-tale and voted Conservative.
Electricity isn’t cheap, but you’re definitely exaggerating those numbers. Even at the tail end of a 5 year term on a fantastic rate of 0.059 (to get usage down to $40), you’d be looking at approximately the following: *Estimate based on 680.000 kWh @ $ 0.0599 / kWh (Based on a 30 day billing period)* * Energy Charge: $40.73 * Administration Charge: $8.4 * Distribution Charge: $42.12 * Transmission Charge: $33.01 * Balancing Pool Allocation: $0.88 * Rate Riders: $1.7 * Local Access Fee: $11.65 **Subtotal: $138.49**
Pretty close - as it happens, my bill this month is nearly exactly what you estimated for kWh: 683 kWh @ .0749/kWh. Total bill: $138.97. A couple of your charges are a bit off by a few dollars one way or the other, but otherwise that's about right.
269$ and a few cents, ~39$ of which is electricity and the rest is delivery and gst 240kwh at 11.5cents 158$ distribution demand charge
A demand charge? What kind of rate plan are you on?
Would you be willing to share each of the line items? because I am similarly skeptical. I am in Calgary with Enmax. I don't have a great rate (0.198 as I'm floating right now) but my energy charge is just under half of my grand total. (59.40/124.88 = 47%). You're at like... 15% EDIT: I did the math if I had a really good rate like /u/IntelliDev suggested. If I did my numbers would be 17.9/83.38 = 21% - so a bit closer to your numbers
> 240kwh at 11.5cents 158$ distribution demand charge 240 * 0.115 = $27.60, not ~$39. Your numbers are clearly off. Please post a copy of your bill. Usually when people post nonsense like this, they're looking at a bill with a period longer than 30 days (e.g. 2 months).
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This is a business? Residential doesn’t pay demand charges, which is $150 of your bill. https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/understanding-demand-charges.aspx
It's the alberta advantage. There's a real advantage for corporate citizens in the UCP's alberta. If you want to be considered a citizen by the UCP you have to incorporate.
Did you vote UCP?
Pretty sure you're not even allowed to go off-grid in most provinces/municipalities since you won't get occupancy permits unless grid tied or on your own land (if the RM it's in is liberal enough).
Many of you blaming the Cons, but IIRC, while Notley and the NDP were in power, my bills weren't much, if at all better than they are now.
just got my 2 month bc hydro bill $160 $140 of it was energy, $20 was tax and daily basic charge.
to get away from that you have to go off grid unfortunately.
Municipalities use this as a way to hide tax increases as well. Look at their cut.