Enmax fixed vs. floating rates...

[Mathgod]

My complaint isn't about things costing what they cost.

My complaint is a gazillion "administration fees" that come across as cash grabs.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

I get your point, there are expenses involved, but $9 of gas costing $70 before tax (and apparently even more for a lot of people) screams corporate greed.

All that says that gas is dirt cheap, though. If gas was 50% of the bill would you feel better? It's not really greed because those fees are heavily regulated. It would be greed if they charged you $10/GJ for gas no matter how cheap it was to them. But they don't, you pay the cost of gas.

[Whynotnow]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

My complaint isn't about things costing what they cost.

My complaint is a gazillion "administration fees" that come across as cash grabs.

Understood, the admin fee on the top part is what you are paying your retailer to administer your bill.They make some money off of this.

Rate riders are things that are used to true up the regulated provider for things in the past, these can be both in the forms of rebates and charges.

The franchise fee is charged by your local municipal government effectively in lieu of property taxes and is flowed through directly to the customer.

It’s all highly regulated, they aren’t making money off of really any of those items. They make money through the return on equity of the investment in their rate base which would be in the delivery charge portion.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Whynotnow

Understood, the admin fee on the top part is what you are paying your retailer to administer your bill.They make some money off of this.

Rate riders are things that are used to true up the regulated provider for things in the past, these can be both in the forms of rebates and charges.

The franchise fee is charged by your local municipal government effectively in lieu of property taxes and is flowed through directly to the customer.

It’s all highly regulated, they aren’t making money off of really any of those items. They make money through the return on equity of the investment in their rate base which would be in the delivery charge portion.

So they're making money by collecting the delivery charges and paying off the cost of their capital expense over time.

But they're at the same time making money by raking in the admin fee.

Seems like double dipping to me...

[Whynotnow]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

So they're making money by collecting the delivery charges and paying off the cost of their capital expense over time.

But they're at the same time making money by raking in the admin fee.

Seems like double dipping to me...

No not really, your admin fee goes to your retailer. They are different from your distribution company.

The only way a utility company makes money is off the recovery of their capital investment. They have an approved debt/equity ratio, which means for every dollar they invest they are allowed a certain amount of equity. Without looking it up right now I think the equity thickness is around 38%. For every dollar of investment 38 cents of it is equity the rest is debt which they recover the cost of. Then in the equity portion they earn an approved regulated rate of turn, these days I think in the low 9 percent range. So the profit they make is the return on equity, times the equity thickness times the undepreciated rate base. The rest of their costs are basically flow through.

There are lots of nuances to this but that’s the basic regulatory set up.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

So they're making money by collecting the delivery charges and paying off the cost of their capital expense over time.

But they're at the same time making money by raking in the admin fee.

Seems like double dipping to me...

Take a closer look at your bill, friend.

You pay the admin fee to Direct Energy, who are the retailer selling you the gas.

You pay the delivery charges to ATCO, who own and operate the piping distribution system.

[ken0042]

I just wish it was more like gasoline where there is one price. I’m sure that out of the $1.50 per litre- probably only a small percentage is for the actual product.

There would be an obvious challenge with natural gas is that we use way more in the winter. But they could certainly average it out. Especially if they want to encourage people to use less.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I just wish it was more like gasoline where there is one price. I’m sure that out of the $1.50 per litre- probably only a small percentage is for the actual product.

There would be an obvious challenge with natural gas is that we use way more in the winter. But they could certainly average it out. Especially if they want to encourage people to use less.

Good news, they can already offer you the one price view you desire. Look under "total" or "summary" and ignore the rest. You can divide by your usage to get the one price per GJ if you want.

[PepsiFree]

I like how we just had this conversation two months ago but I was the one getting educated so now I can sit here all smug and think, “Uh, wow, look at this guy who thinks he should get gas at cost and pay nothing to have it delivered! Plebs!”

[RichieRich]

dang... Enmax plan coming up for renewal this Fall.
Current rates: 6.59 c/kWh; 4.09 /GJ
Current offer: 9.79 c/kWh (3yr fixed, better than both 1 and 5yr); 4.59/GJ (3yr fixed)


That'll be quite the large bump on the electricity

[Looch City]

Originally Posted by RichieRich

dang... Enmax plan coming up for renewal this Fall.
Current rates: 6.59 c/kWh; 4.09 /GJ
Current offer: 9.79 c/kWh (3yr fixed, better than both 1 and 5yr); 4.59/GJ (3yr fixed)


That'll be quite the large bump on the electricity

We had this jump last summer and barely noticed any difference lol. Maybe 15-20$ more overall.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by RichieRich

dang... Enmax plan coming up for renewal this Fall.
Current rates: 6.59 c/kWh; 4.09 /GJ
Current offer: 9.79 c/kWh (3yr fixed, better than both 1 and 5yr); 4.59/GJ (3yr fixed)


That'll be quite the large bump on the electricity

Come on... Richie Rich?

[RichieRich]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Come on... Richie Rich?

Present tense, obviously.
Not after all these rate increases!!
Future tense: P!ssPoor

[RichieRich]

so is the government getting more involved in rate "setting" or "guidance"? The article angle is that it should help consumers rather than cause overall higher costs. Thoughts?



https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/new-rules...2025-1.6985010

[Zary's-Mustache]

So we got our bill and it says we used 51m3.

WTF. Impossible. We literally never used any outside water. Kept showers short.

Just checked my toilet and don't hear or see any slow leak.

My previous 2 bills combined was 42m3.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Zary's-Mustache

So we got our bill and it says we used 51m3.

WTF. Impossible. We literally never used any outside water. Kept showers short.

Just checked my toilet and don't hear or see any slow leak.

During the water crisis I went out and turn my neighbours taps on at night and then turned them off early in the morning.

Maybe we are neighbours

[Zary's-Mustache]

Ugh my downstairs toilet was leaking and my mom didn't say anything.

Time for eviction notice.

Sorry Gondek.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by RichieRich

so is the government getting more involved in rate "setting" or "guidance"? The article angle is that it should help consumers rather than cause overall higher costs. Thoughts?



https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/new-rules...2025-1.6985010

No, this has to do with how Calgary was calculating the fees. It was based on the Regulated Rate Option and not based on consumption. When the RRO spiked, the fees Calgary collected went up, way up, way more than they would ever need to collect to run the system. EPCOR and other calculate their access fees based on consumption.

They committed to changing it and this is them doing it. Has nothing to do with the government. It was discussed on CP, but I can't seem to find it in this thread. Maybe it's in the Calgary politics thread??

Edit: That discussion starts from here. Start with the twitter thread and go from there.

[Wormius]

Aren’t most peoples water meters easy to check? If you have a water leak then it should pretty easy to at least recognize it before discovering it for the first time on your utility bill.

[Zary's-Mustache]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Aren’t most peoples water meters easy to check? If you have a water leak then it should pretty easy to at least recognize it before discovering it for the first time on your utility bill.

You think people check their water meters? Don't be ridiculous.