What the heck are all these riders on my power bill?

NWT power utilities do, for the most part, try to explain the riders on your bill. But you have to know where to look and the wording isn’t always transparent.

Several NWT Power Corporation customers in Hay River were in touch over the past two weeks to ask about the multiple riders on their bills.

A rider is a charge (or a credit, if it’s giving you money) that adjusts for things that weren’t included in the standard, approved power rates for your community.

Rates are set by a regulator based on applications submitted by the utility companies. If something changes – think low water at hydro plants as a recent NWT example – a rider can tweak the rates you pay, such as to cover the cost of extra diesel.

Some riders are in essence permanently in place (but varied from time to time) and some are temporary, although the word “temporary” is a matter of perspective. One of the riders in action right now is expected to last for 25 years, which is about the lifespan of a zebra. The zebra might conclude things aren’t so black and white.

If you have been left staring at your bill and trying to work out what all the riders are, here’s the information the utilities provide.

NWT Power Corporation

Most NWT residents outside Yellowknife are direct customers of the NWT Power Corporation, the territorial government-owned utility.

A few days ago, NTPC published a webpage setting out what some of its newer riders do and why they are on your bill.

This includes the aforementioned zebra rider – yes, we’re calling it that, it’s a better name than “Sunk Cost Deferral Account Rider” – which is spread over 25 years because it’s recovering a huge sum of money. It exists to claw back money NTPC spent combatting extremely low water, handling the effects of floods and wildfires, and completing a lengthy, costly overhaul of the Taltson hydro plant.

There’s also a rider collecting cash NTPC says it would have earned if the rates it applied for in April 2024 had been immediately approved. Instead, they were approved in December 2025, so the rider essentially collects the backdated price increase.

Another rider – this one lasting just a few months – covers costs NTPC is paying to Naka Power to take over Hay River’s power franchise. You pay that one even if you live outside Hay River.

NTPC does have one rider purely for Hay River customers. This one “pays off specific historical balances (such as old rate shortfalls) that were owed by Hay River customers to Naka Power before the transfer,” NTPC states. That one lasts until March 2028.

Lastly, there’s one important rider not in NTPC’s latest guide. The NWT Stabilization Fund Rate Rider has been around for a longer period and acts as a buffer for fluctuations in fuel prices and hydro generation levels, charging or refunding customers when actual costs drift too far from what was assumed when rates were set.

Naka Power

We found it slightly harder to nail down information about Naka Power’s riders. Naka is the power distributor in Yellowknife and a few other parts of the NWT.

On its billing page, Naka lists some riders and how they adjust rates. It also lists the decision from the Public Utilities Board (the regulator) that applies for each one. But unless you’re an expert in power rates and regularly read the PUB’s website, that information will be meaningless.

The next step is to open a 33-page PDF setting out all of Naka’s rates in detail. The list of riders starts on page 21.

Each rider gets a page. Some pages contain much more helpful information than others about why a given rider exists.

For example, Rider A is defined as covering “fuel price variances between actual fuel costs and fuel costs based on the board approved diesel prices included in base rates.” Straightforward enough.

But Rider E, titled “temporary refund/surcharge,” makes absolutely no attempt to explain itself. (A search of the Public Utilities Board website reveals Rider E is “a mechanism to recover or refund the difference between revenues billed under the interim 2025 rates and those based on the final board-approved 2025 rates.”)

Rider G says it is “applied to energy consumption to flow through the Transitional Cost Deferral,” but nowhere is the Transitional Cost Deferral defined or explained. (Again, you need to read this Public Utilities Board decision for the full explanation, but be warned that PUB decisions are, if anything, even harder to follow – and do not come with plain-English summaries. In essence, this rider is again related to the Hay River power franchise moving from Naka to NTPC.)

In Yellowknife, you might also see Rider H, Rider F and Rider R on a bill. We had to sift through a combination of Naka’s PDF and Public Utilities Board decisions for these.

• Rider H lets Naka gradually collect or refund money when its actual costs in certain areas, such as pensions or taxes, end up being different from those built into the approved rates.
• Rider F covers the cost Naka pays to buy wholesale electricity from the NWT Power Corporation, which generates the power that Naka then distributes to customers. (The wholesale price changes over time, so Rider F is adjusted periodically to reflect the actual cost.)
• Rider R covers the gap between what Naka Power is allowed to charge through its base rates and what the regulator has determined the company actually needs to earn to cover its costs. When the PUB agrees Naka needs to earn a certain sum, but the underlying base rates haven’t changed, Rider R is the mechanism that makes up the difference.

Naka’s rider list does not appear to state how long each rider is expected to last. Some of the above riders are clearly designed to remain in place and simply be adjusted over time. It’s not clear from the PUB decisions if any others have a fixed end point.