Enmax fixed vs. floating rates...

[Calgary14]

Direct Energy is very aggressive in the Walmart kiosks they have set up. It seems gimmicky and I think they tend to focus on people that just dont know any different

[iggyntangs]

Nm.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by iggyntangs

So I have a bit of a weird situation.

I recently moved back into the province. I used to live in a home with Enmax and I just received a bill from Direct Energy with my name and address and an account # and there's some random small bill for gas.

I've never created an account with them and am tempted to tell them to pound sand, but am worried what would happen for leaving a bill unattended to (even if I'm not responsible).

This happen to anyone before, any advice?

I may be wrong, so grain of salt and all that, but I believe Direct is one of the regulated providers, so if you haven’t actually chosen a provider they’re the ones handling your account. Basically the moment you moved is the moment you started getting charged, and if you didn’t choose a provider at that moment, they were your provider until you did.

The bill is likely legit and your responsibility.

[DoubleK]

Pepsi is right. You have to pay that bill. Direct can be your default provider depending on where you live.

[iggyntangs]

Thanks. And after taking a closer look looks like that is indeed the case.

And I found an older piece of mail that stated as such that they were the default provider and no one had signed up for utilities as of that date, hence the upcoming piece of mail with the bill would come along.

Appreciate it all!

[timun]

With the talk I've heard in the press and amongst friends and colleagues about super-high energy bills I put together a few quick and dirty charts in Excel. Over the last two years:



I had a 5.89¢/kWh electricity contract until the end of 2020, went floating for about a month (which appeared over the course of the first couple 2021 bills), had a contract for 6.29¢/kWh until November 2021, and went on my current 6.69¢/kWh contract thereafter.

I was paying the floating rate for gas, plus a $0.99/GJ transaction fee, until I switched to a $4.09/GJ contract last November. The floating gas rate plus transaction fee exceeded $4.09/GJ in March, July, August, October and November 2021, hence the switch to fixed.

My highest electricity bills were February, March and May of 2021 ($86.64, $78.41 and $80.67, respectively) and last month ($77.01). That said, they were also far and away the months with the highest consumption (437, 394, 394 and 343 kWh).

My highest gas bills were March 2021, January 2022 and February 2022 ($199.57, $202.57 and $161.75). Unsurprisingly these are also three of the highest months of consumption (19.67, 17.61 and 13.49 GJ), but I had also used 13.87 GJ in March 2020 and 13.71 GJ in February 2021, with lower bills ($117.20 and $131.19). The difference is that prices in March 2020 and February 2021 were only $1.75/GJ and $2.50/GJ, whereas I pay $4.09/GJ now, carbon tax is a little higher (was $1.0499523/GJ in March 2020, $1.5762711/GJ in February 2021, $2.1025899/GJ now, and $2.6289087/GJ beginning April 1 this year), and distribution costs have gone up.

The average bills in 2020, 2021 and 2022 (so far) are:

Electricity Gas
2020 $64.21 $87.16
2021 $60.94 $102.59
2022 $59.78 $167.14

The gas bill averages are skewed because 2020 doesn't include January and February, which would undoubtedly skew the average higher, and 2022 obviously only includes Jan-Feb-March. I don't have A/C so my electricity consumption usually peaks in the winter rather than summer, and so far so good on that end, even with my electricity price having gone up about 13% in the last two years.


The overall point of this is energy costs haven't really hit me hard in the pocketbook in the last few months, and this should be all the evidence one needs to sign a contract and get off the much more expensive regulated rates.

[edslunch]

I didn't lock in before, now Enmax is offering 9.29c/kWh fixed rate. Is it a good bet to lock in or not?

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by edslunch

I didn't lock in before, now Enmax is offering 9.29c/kWh fixed rate. Is it a good bet to lock in or not?

The nice thing about the contract system in Alberta is that you can switch off a contract to a floating rate without penalty. 9.29c/kWh is pretty high historically for a fixed rate but it is still lower then the floating or RRO rates seen this year.

https://www.enmax.com/ForYourHomeSit...ity-After.aspx

https://www.enmax.com/home/rro/regulated-rates

It's probably worthwhile to sign it, given global energy matters and winter approaching it doesn't seem likely that rates will go down anytime soon.

[Bigtime]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1575159263848431617

[Fuzz]

I was told the unregulated market would provide us with choice and cheap plentiful electricity. I feel deceived. Is there a reason for it to be so high? Natural gas prices are higher, but no stupid high, and if we are to believe the rhetoric, we should have lots of cheap plentiful wind and solar. Where is the rise in costs coming from? Should I be buying utility stocks to offset this when they get windfall profits?

[DoubleK]

The biggest reason is the dissolution of the Balancing Pool.

Once Cascade comes online in March-ish 2023 the price will stabilize.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I was told the unregulated market would provide us with choice and cheap plentiful electricity. I feel deceived. Is there a reason for it to be so high? Natural gas prices are higher, but no stupid high, and if we are to believe the rhetoric, we should have lots of cheap plentiful wind and solar. Where is the rise in costs coming from? Should I be buying utility stocks to offset this when they get windfall profits?

A huge amount of coal is off line. As a society we decided not to burn coal anymore, and this is the consequence. Those higher prices are incentivizing tons of wind and solar construction, but that is more expensive than shoveling coal into a mine-mouth power plant. Alberta power prices will move with natural gas now, except when its windy enough to power the province on wind. The oil sands cogen plants also bid in at very low prices so they are cheap baseload even though they run on nat gas, because the electricity is basically a by-product for them.

[DoubleK]

^^^ Genesee 2 was offline for 400MW. That's relatively insignificant now as there are only about 1200MW of coal capacity.

The intertie was out of service for planned maintenance. It was restored earlier this evening and only had about 200 MW on it early on which tells me things weren't quite that bad, meaning they weren't really that close to running out of power.

There would have been about 150MW of load shed ready to go. That's the last step before they start dumping load in the major cities.

No question that supply was tight the past few days, but the impending apocalypse wasn't that close.

As for your comments on oilsands cogen, I don't believe that is correct anymore since the dissolution of the Balancing Pool has fundamentally changed how blocks of gen are offered.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

^^^ Genesee 2 was offline for 400MW. That's relatively insignificant now as there are only about 1200MW of coal capacity.

The intertie was out of service for planned maintenance. It was restored earlier this evening and only had about 200 MW on it early on which tells me things weren't quite that bad, meaning they weren't really that close to running out of power.

There would have been about 150MW of load shed ready to go. That's the last step before they start dumping load in the major cities.

No question that supply was tight the past few days, but the impending apocalypse wasn't that close.

As for your comments on oilsands cogen, I don't believe that is correct anymore since the dissolution of the Balancing Pool has fundamentally changed how blocks of gen are offered.

Re: coal I meant on a longer time-scale than this month. Prices would absolutely be lower if we had all the coal plants still on line. I have no specific comment on this months prices other than I'm glad I locked in.

I dont believe much if any oilsands cogen was under PPAs, so the dissolution of the balancing pool shouldn't make any difference there. They were bidding into the energy market before and they're bidding now, and they bid lower than straight gas gen because they need to keep running to keep the steam going for industrial use.

[DoubleK]

I agree with you that cogen was not under PPAs, what I'm saying is the lack of PPAs has changed how the blocks are offered across the market.

Can't speak to all of the oil sands operators but I know of two cogen plants (different operators) that have changed strategy how they offer their blocks.

[flamesrule_kipper34]

Not sure if anyone here has a small biz, however, I'm taking over a commercial space and was using: https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/cost-comparison-tool.aspx and unlike rez where Enmax was the defacto #1, this one seemed a fair bit different.

It seemed cheaper to NOT bundle and I was seeing for the area I'm in that:

Abode Power
3 Year Non-Solar Discount Rate (+ Prudential) was the cheapest for electricity and

AltaConnect
5 year Floating Rate Natural Gas was the cheapest for gas

Was a bit surprised, but wanted to see if anyone else had any experience as this is new to me.

In short, it seemed to be a significant savings $450/month breaking it out with those providers versus bundling with Enmax.

Any thoughts?

[Lil Pedro]

Enmax just asked to renew my plan:

Electricity: 5 years, $11.29/kWh (previous was $6.39/kWh)

N. Gas: 5 year, $5.79/GJ (previous was $3.79/GJ)


Pretty steep increase on what I was currently paying, plus my old plan was for 3 years. That said, I do like the convenience of being locked into a rate rather than floating. Not sure what to do. Anyone in a similar situation?

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by Lil Pedro

Enmax just asked to renew my plan:

Electricity: 5 years, 1$1.29cents/kWh (previous was $6.39/kWh)

N. Gas: 5 year, $5.79/GJ (previous was $3.79/GJ)


Pretty steep increase on what I was currently paying, plus my old plan was for 3 years. That said, I do like the convenience of being locked into a rate rather than floating. Not sure what to do. Anyone in a similar situation?

Is that supposed to say $11.29 / kWh for Electricity? Jeez!

I'm currently locked in to $6.69 / kWh and $4.79 / GJ. Looks like renewal date is July 2024.

[Fuzz]

https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/regulated-rates.aspx

I hadn't realized the rate had gone so high. I think you are best to lock in at the 11.29, because aren't you able to switch rates if a lower one shows up? You get a guaranteed rate, but can always switch to a lower one.

[Bigtime]

Didn't Smith announce that they will keep the electricity rebate going? So hopefully that offsets $50/month for the time being.