The prices on electricity bills may as much as double in coming months, according to Joe Anglin, energy critic for the Wild Rose Party and Sundre-area MLA.
Premier Allison Redford froze the ancillary (miscellaneous) costs on Albertans' electric bills about 11 months ago, and is about to unfreeze those costs, Anglin told the Gazette.
"She froze those costs on the electric bills because they were rising at a rapid rate,î said Anglin, explaining that the actual cost of electricity accounts for less than half of the average bill, with the rest of the bill paying for distribution, line loss, transmission, and other ancillary costs.
The big question is how much these extra costs are going to account for, he said.
"What are (the costs), why are they? All of a sudden we're going to get all these costs piled on, in addition to our extra costs, and even the (energy) minister admits he can't figure it out. He doesn't understand it,î he said.
If the minister of energy doesn't understand the numbers, how can Albertans understand them, asked Anglin.
"What I'm saying is, if you're going to do that to Albertans, then you should tell us what are those extra costs that we should have paid that we didn't pay - that we're going to pay now - and justify them.
The part that Anglin is upset about is that nobody knows how much these fees will be.
"That's one of the most frustrating things ñ we don't know. And people should know before their first bill comes out. They should tell us how much, and why it went up to that level.î
He said that Redford hasn't explained why she froze those costs in the first place, though he suspects it was because of the latest provincial election.
"So the price of electricity and the extra costs were just ballooning out of control, we were going into an election, and no way did they want that to be an election issue, so they froze the costs.î
Minister of Energy Ken Hughes said in a press release that the transmission lines will be amortized over the life of the lines, which can range from 70 to 100 years, said Anglin.
"It's a huge expense for the public and I think the average bill will double as a result, when all these costs get loaded on - and that's significant,î he said.
"One of the things that gets me is the justification for these transmission lines is that we need to keep the lights on in Calgary, and that might make sense to the average Albertan, except transmission lines don't produce electricity - they only move it from one place to another.î
The planned lines are estimated to cost taxpayers about $4 billion, he said, whereas a new generator that was recently built by Capital Power in Clover Bar ñ near Edmonton ñ produces 243 megawatts (MW). Another generator east of Calgary, the Sheppard plant, will produce an additional 800 MW, he said.
The new lines are planned to transmit about 1,000 MW, with the capability to expand to 4,000 MW without much trouble, according to AltaLink's chief engineer George Bowden.
"So you ask yourself as the public,î said Anglin, "let's see, do I build a $4- billion transmission line system, or a $263-million generator?
"I mean, there's no comparison. So what we have right now is we're building these massive transmission lines and the Sheppard plant down in Calgary is going to go online in 18 months.î
When the provincial government first decided to build the transmission lines, the assumption was that there would be no generator built any other place in the province, he said.
"But the Sheppard plant is the big one being built east of Calgary, and clearly that eliminates the need for these transmission lines and actually makes use of the existing transmission lines and gives them much longer lives.î
Once the plant is completed, the need to transmit electricity is going to basically disappear, he noted.
"We don't need massive transmission, not to feed our own market, that's for sure,î he said.
