Energy Efficiency Is Not A Magic Elixir
It’s time to take a serious look at your electricity bill because when you dig down deep, you’ll find that you aren’t in as much control of your utility cost as you thought you were. Those LED bulbs are great except for the fact that so much of your monthly utility bill is beyond your control
Pull out your bill right now and do some number crunching.
Your electricity bill is a mash up of a lot of components and if you pull it apart you will soon see that all the energy efficiency in the world can’t do much in the way of reducing 60 – 80% of your costs. That’s right. You, like the rest of us is paying for the price of a system built to milk your wallet.
It’s called obfuscation. Let’s make your utility bill so confusing that you don’t even question what it says.
Do you know what a;
· System Access Charge is?
· Distribution access charge is?
· Municipal consent and access fee is?
· Billing and administration charge is?
· Rate Ryder is?
· Municipal franchise fee?
· Balancing Pool Allocation Rider?
Dig deeper and you will soon note that many of these charges are either fixed and can’t be changed or that the formulas behind their use will only credit a portion of energy reduction towards a reduction of that specific fee.
In some cases, the fees are actually closer to sleight of hand than being a legitimate fee for services rendered.
As an example, the City of Calgary Is known to have the highest “Local Access Fee” in Alberta and rivals the highest anywhere in Canada. What you ask is a Local Access Fee? In its simplest definition, the local access fee highlighted on city of Calgary utility bills is a property tax disguised by another name.
Now just think back to all the times where you heard some elected city official claim that the city of Calgary has some of the lowest property taxes in Canada and take another look at your utility bill. Energy efficiency won’t help you in any way lower this fee.
It doesn’t matter if you are on holidays and not at home to bump your electricity use or if you have computers and TV’s in every room. That local access fee is your contribution to city coffers and has nothing to do with your electricity consumption.
PS; Your natural gas may have many if not all of these same fees including the municipal access (property tax) fee.
If you really want to know if you are being taxed or charged or billed the correct amount for many of these fees, drop us a line. You can contact us through our website at www.newgen-energy.ca or if you’d like to get down to the specifics with me directly, email me at lpeters@newgenenergy.ca.