There’s a spooky surprise for Ontario electricity customers coming right on the heels of Halloween. On November 1st, electricity generation costs for residential consumers in the province will surge by 29%.
According to the Ontario Energy Board, which just approved this increase, a major cause of this eye watering cost jump is a result of an increasing reliance on expensive nuclear generation.
Premier Ford knows a bad news story when it sees it. So he is going to bury much of this increase on your electricity bill by increasing the taxpayer-financed Ontario Electricity Rebate (OER) from 13.1% to 23.5%.
The bill for maintaining this taxpayer subsidy for electricity rates will now cost Ontario’s taxpayers much more than the $6 billion per year we’re already paying to artificially lower rates! This massive subsidy disguises the real cost of keeping the lights on with expensive nuclear reactors.
But it gets worse. The Ford government is planning to spend more than $20 billion on new U.S. nuclear reactors that will produce power costing 2 to 8 times more than solar and wind power. Given that it will take at least a decade (and probably more) to build these reactors, the province will be burning more polluting gas for years to come while it waits for these first-of-their-kind untested reactors to be completed.
Meanwhile, we could be deploying solar on rooftops and parking lots and building offshore wind in the Great Lakes right now to produce more affordable power.
The Premier’s decision to go with more expensive nuclear is a sweet treat for his friends in the nuclear and gas industries, but a nasty trick for Ontario electricity consumers at the worst possible time.
Please ask Premier Ford to lower our electricity rates and taxes by investing in wind and solar energy and cancelling the construction of new high-cost U.S. nuclear reactors.