The Northwest Territories Power Corporation (NTPC) plans to add an extra charge to customers’ bills for the next eight months, starting in August.
The power corporation’s customers – most NWT residents outside Yellowknife and Hay River – started paying new, increased power rates in June.
Those increased rates were approved by the Public Utilities Board, the power corporation’s independent regulator, in mid-May. But the board also agreed the increase should apply retroactively back to the start of April.
In a news release on Wednesday, the power corporation said the missing revenue from April and May – when its customers were still paying the old rates – amounts to $357,000.
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To get the money back, the corporation will add a rider of an extra 0.17 cents per kWh of energy used to customers’ bills for the foreseeable future.
In other words, your power bills from April and May are coming back to haunt you – in the form of a small extra monthly fee to make up the difference between what you did pay, and what the new rate would have been.
If you use 600 kWh of energy in a given month, that would mean paying an extra dollar via the new rider.
In its news release, NTPC said the rider will kick in on August 1 and probably remain in place until the end of March 2019.
Residents of Yellowknife and Hay River receive energy from Northland Utilities, which in turn buys it from NTPC. Northland Utilities hasn’t commented on the new rider but would be expected to pass the cost on to its customers.
