Ontario Government Introduces 8% Provincial Rebate
Effective January 1, 2017, the Ontario Government will be providing an 8% rebate on electricity charges. Residential condominiums and individual owners in residential condominiums who pay their own hydro (either through third party billing or through a direct account with the local hydro service) are eligible for this new rebate program. Applicable savings will be retroactive to January 1, 2017. The rebate will automatically be applied to resident bills and your bill statements and there is no action needed on your part.
Condominiums who use third party billing services and sub-metering providers should review your bills to ensure that the local electricity utility implements the provincial rebate by the July 1, 2017 deadline set by the Ontario Energy Board.
FAQs
- How is the rebate calculated?
The rebate is calculated as 8% of your electricity, delivery, regulatory, and debt retirement charges – residential condominiums should review if they are still paying the debt retirement charges as these charges were to be removed effective January 1, 2016.
- My bill period straddles December 2016 and January 2017. How will my rebate be calculated?
The rebate amount for a transition bill will be prorated based on electricity, delivery, regulatory, and debt retirement charges incurred from the effective date of January 1, 2017 onward.
- Will residents be informed of the new rebate?
Residents will be informed of the new rebate through a bill insert in January 2017
Our condominium corporation is suite-metered by our local utility, Toronto Hydro. This worked against us with the OCEB, which gave a generous rebate to bulk-metered condos based on an assumed consumption of 800 kWh per unit per month, but in our case treated the entire common elements as as an individual unit.
It was good to see that the new 8% rebate has been applied to the common element hydro bill, but what about the other 17%? The Premier’s announcements refer to every “residence” or “residential customer”, and of course every condo unit owner pays for hydro through both his individual meter and through the common element fees. Will the 17% rebate apply to the common elements of all condo buildings, whether or not they are suite metered? Or will the common elements again be treated as they were under the OCEB regulations?
Thanks for your comment.
There is good news for you and other condos in that the newly announced 17% cut will come to rates meaning that it will be spread evenly across all units and common elements which are eligible for the RPP.
If the cut were being offered in the form of a rebate or a credit it may only affect the units, leaving common area bills at a higher level. Although details are still vague from queens park it appears that the 17% cut will cone in the form of a reduced RPP rate – and that is good news for condo owners.
Sorry, forgive my naivety. Individually metered units will get the rebate from what I gather from this article. But please clarify/confirm that the the corporation will also receive a rebate on the bill it pays for the common elements. thanks.
Over the course of 18 months, the Ontario government consulted with both consumers and industry stakeholders to identify issues, struck working groups to propose solutions and asked an experts’ panel to make recommendations.