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Manitoba Hydro Phone Scam targets small businesses with disconnection threats, prepaid card payments, caller ID spoofing, phishing texts, and door-to-door fraud; hang up, verify your account directly, and never share banking information.

Key Points

A scam where callers threaten disconnection and demand prepaid cards; verify account status directly with Manitoba Hydro.

✅ Hang up and call Manitoba Hydro at 1-888-624-9376 to verify.

✅ Never pay by prepaid cards, gift cards, or crypto.

✅ Hydro will not cut power on one-hour notice.

Manitoba Hydro is warning customers, particularly small business owners, to be wary of high-pressure scammers, as Ontario utilities warn of scams in other provinces, threatening to shut off their electricity.

The callers demand the customer to make immediate payment by a prepaid card. Often, the calls are made in the middle of the day at a busy time, frightening the customer with aggressive threats about disconnection, as hydro disconnections have made headlines elsewhere, says hydro spokesman Bruce Owen.

"They tell them 'we have a truck on the way to cut off your power. If you don't pay in the next hour you're out of luck,'" he said.

"And because these folks have inventory in freezers and they have customers … they're willing to fork over several hundred or even several thousand dollars on a prepaid card to somebody they don't know to keep the lights on."

Maybe the business owners can't recall, with everything happening, including discussions about Hydro One peak rates in Ontario, if they've made their payments on time. They start second-guessing and believing the person on the other line, Owen says.

And they worry about losing thousands of dollars in business if they lose power. So they're more than willing to run out to a store, buy a prepaid debit card and provide the number to the caller.

"Their goal is to manipulate you into sending money before you figure out it's a scam," said Chris McColm, hydro's security and investigations supervisor. "These people are crooks and you should hang up on them."

For any customers that are in arrears, hydro will work with them to resolve the issue, Owen said.

"We do not have to take that extreme measure of cutting off or disconnecting anybody. That's not the business we're in — we don't strong arm people that way," he said.

"Anybody who's threatening to cut off your power with an hour or half-an-hour notice, well it's it's no better than someone waiting around the corner, waiting the club you over the head in the dark of night. That's what they are."

Fraud reports soar

The power utility has recorded a nearly-300 per cent jump in the number of fraud-related complaints this year over 2017. There have been 862 phone, text and e-mail scams and that could still go much higher.

The current statistics from 2018 have only calculated up to Oct. 31. In 2017, there were 221.

That jump in numbers doesn't necessarily mean there are more scammers out there.

It could simply mean people are finally getting wise to fraudsters and reporting it more, Owen says.

"At the same token, we don't hear of everybody who's been taking advantage of because once they've found out that they've been hoodwinked they don't want to tell anybody because they're so embarrassed," he said.

"These scammers can be very convincing and anyone can be victimized," McColm said.

If you are able to think clearly when some high-pressure caller gets you on the line, Owen suggests asking a few simple questions to challenge their legitimacy:

• What street am I on?
• What does my business look like? 
• What's the weather outside right now?

Phone scammers can falsify their caller ID information to make it appear they're calling from a local number, but what you'll find is most of them aren't in Winnipeg or Manitoba and likely not even this country or continent, Owen says.

The key to being safe is simply to never give out banking information, Owen says. It's a message that has been stressed for years and 80-90 per cent of people understand it, but it's that other 10-20 per cent that are still being victimized.And it's not just phone calls. Many other fraud-related complaints to Manitoba Hydro this year concerned unsolicited text messages to customers saying they had been overbilled, or faced retroactive charges elsewhere, and were eligible for a refund.

This scam is also aimed at getting a customer's personal banking information, under the guise of having money put back into their account.

Also, many people, especially seniors living alone, continue to be targeted by aggressive door-to-door fraudsters, and cases like the electricity theft ring in Montreal underscore the risks, McColm says. However, he adds, hydro employees always display photo ID and will never demand to come into a home. 

If you're unsure whether a phone call, text or email is real or a scam, contact Manitoba Hydro at 1-888-624-9376.

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Texas Blackout Liability Ruling clarifies appellate court findings in Houston, citing deregulated energy markets, ERCOT immunity, wholesale generators, retail providers, and 2021 winter storm lawsuits over grid failures and wrongful deaths.

Key Points

Houston judges held wholesale generators owe no duty to retail customers, limiting liability for 2021 blackout lawsuits.

✅ Court cites deregulated market and lack of privity to consumers

✅ Ruling shields generators from 2021 winter storm civil suits

✅ Plaintiffs plan appeals; legislature may address liability

Nearly three years after the devastating Texas blackout of 2021, a panel of judges from the First Court of Appeals in Houston has determined that major power companies cannot be held accountable for their failure to deliver electricity during the power grid crisis that unfolded, citing Texas' deregulated energy market as the reason.

This ruling appears likely to shield these companies from lawsuits that were filed against them in the aftermath of the blackout, leaving the families of those affected uncertain about where to seek justice.

In February 2021, a severe cold front swept over Texas, bringing extended periods of ice and snow. The extreme weather conditions increased energy demand while simultaneously reducing supply by causing power generators and the state's natural gas supply chain to freeze. This led to a blackout that left millions of Texans without power and water for nearly a week.

The state officially reported that almost 250 people lost their lives during the winter storm and subsequent blackout, although some analysts argue that this is a significant undercount and warn of blackout risks across the U.S. during severe heat as well.

In the wake of the storm, Texans affected by the energy system's failure began filing lawsuits, and lawmakers proposed a market bailout as political debate intensified. Some of these legal actions were directed against power generators whose plants either ceased to function during the storm or ran out of fuel for electricity generation.

After several years of legal proceedings, a three-judge panel was convened to evaluate the merits of these lawsuits.

This week, Chief Justice Terry Adams issued a unanimous opinion on behalf of the panel, stating, "Texas does not currently recognize a legal duty owed by wholesale power generators to retail customers to provide continuous electricity to the electric grid, and ultimately to the retail customers."

The opinion further clarified that major power generators "are now statutorily precluded by the legislature from having any direct relationship with retail customers of electricity."

This separation of power generation from transmission and retail electric sales in many parts of Texas resulted from energy market deregulation in the early 2000s, with the goal of reducing energy costs, and prompted electricity market reforms aimed at avoiding future blackouts.

Under the previous system, power companies were "vertically integrated," controlling generators, transmission lines, and selling the energy they produced directly to regional customers. However, in deregulated areas of Texas, competition was introduced, creating competing energy-generating companies and retail electric providers that purchase power wholesale and then sell it to residential consumers; meanwhile, electric cooperatives in other parts of the state remained member-owned providers.

Tré Fischer, a partner at the Jackson Walker law firm representing the power companies, explained, "One consequence of that was, because of the unbundling and the separation, you also don't have the same duties and obligations [to consumers]. The structure just doesn't allow for that direct relationship and correspondingly a direct obligation to continually supply the electricity even if there's a natural disaster or catastrophic event."

In the opinion, Justice Adams noted that when designing the Texas energy market, amid renewed interest in ways to improve electricity reliability across the grid, state lawmakers "could have codified the retail customers' asserted duty of continuous electricity on the part of wholesale power generators into law."

The recent ruling applies to five representative cases chosen by the panel out of hundreds filed after the blackout. Due to this decision, it is improbable that any of the lawsuits against power companies will succeed, according to the court's interpretation.

However, plaintiffs' attorneys have indicated their intention to appeal. They may request a review of the panel's opinion by the entire First Court of Appeals or appeal directly to the state supreme court.

The state Supreme Court had previously ruled that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state's power grid operator, enjoys sovereign immunity and cannot be sued over the blackout.

This latest opinion raises the question of who, if anyone, can be held responsible for deaths and losses resulting from the blackout, a question left unaddressed by the court. Fischer commented, "If anything [the judges] were saying that is a question for the Texas legislature."

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SaskPower Rate Hike 2022-2023 signals higher electricity rates in Saskatchewan as natural gas costs surge; the Rate Review Panel approved increases, affecting residential utility bills amid affordability concerns and government energy policy shifts.

Key Points

An 8% SaskPower electricity rate increase split 4% in Sept 2022 and 4% in Apr 2023, driven by natural gas costs.

✅ 4% increase Sept 1, 2022; +4% on Apr 1, 2023

✅ Panel-approved amid natural gas price surge and higher fuel costs

✅ Avg residential bill up about $5 per step; affordability concerns

The NDP Opposition is condemning the provincial government’s decision to approve the Saskatchewan Rate Review Panel’s recommendation to increase SaskPower’s rates for the first time since 2018, despite a recent 10% rebate pledge by the Sask. Party.

The Crown electrical utility’s rates will increase four per cent this fall, and another four per cent in 2023, a trajectory comparable to BC Hydro increases over two years. According to a government news release issued Thursday, the new rates will result in an average increase of approximately $5 on residential customers’ bills starting on Sept. 1, 2022, and an additional $5 on April 1, 2023.

“The decision to increase rates is not taken lightly and came after a thorough review by the independent Saskatchewan Rate Review Panel,” Minister Responsible for SaskPower Don Morgan said in a news release, amid Nova Scotia’s 14% hike this year. “World events have caused a significant rise in the price of natural gas, and with 42 per cent of Saskatchewan’s electricity coming from natural gas-fueled facilities, SaskPower requires additional revenue to maintain reliable operations.”

But NDP SaskPower critic Aleana Young says the rate hike is coming just as businesses and industries are struggling in an “affordability crisis,” even as Manitoba Hydro scales back a planned increase next year.

She called the announcement of an eight per cent increase in power bills on a summer day before the long weekend “a cowardly move” by the premier and his cabinet, amid comparable changes such as Manitoba’s 2.5% annual hikes now proposed.

“Not to mention the Sask. Party plans to hike natural gas rates by 17% just days from now,” said Young in a news release issued Friday, as Manitoba rate hearings get underway nearby. “If Scott Moe thinks his choices — to not provide Saskatchewan families any affordability relief, to hike taxes and fees, then compound those costs with utility rate hikes — are defensible, he should have the courage to get out of his closed-door meetings and explain himself to the people of this province.”

The province noted natural gas is the largest generation source in SaskPower’s fleet. As federal regulations require the elimination of conventional coal generation in Canada by 2030, SaskPower’s reliance on natural gas generation is expected to grow, with experts in Alberta warning of soaring gas and power prices in the region. Fuel and Purchased Power expense increases are largely driven by increased natural gas prices, and SaskPower’s fuel and purchased power expense is expected to increase from $715 million in 2020-21 to $1.069 billion in 2023-24. This represents a 50 per cent increase in fuel and purchased power expense over three years.

“In the four years since our last increase SaskPower has worked to find internal efficiencies, but at this time we require additional funding to continue to provide reliable and sustainable power,” SaskPower president & CEO Rupen Pandya said in the release “We will continue to be transparent about our rate strategy and the need for regular, moderate increases.”

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Germany Energy Price Hikes are driving electricity tariffs, gas prices, and heating costs higher as wholesale markets surge after the Ukraine invasion; households face inflationary pressure despite relief measures and a renewables levy cut.

Key Points

Germany Energy Price Hikes reflect surging power and gas tariffs from wholesale spikes, prompting relief measures.

✅ Electricity tariffs to rise 19.5% in Apr-Jun

✅ Gas tariffs up 42.3%; heating and fuel costs soar

✅ Renewables levy ends July; saves €6.6 billion yearly

Record prices for electricity and gas in Germany will continue to rise in the coming months, the dpa agency, citing estimates from the consumer portal Verivox.

According to him, electricity suppliers and local utilities, in whose area of ​​responsibility there are 13 million households, made an announcement of tariff increases in April, May and June by 19.5%. Gas tariffs increased by an average of 42.3%.

According to Verivox, electricity prices in Germany have approximately doubled over the year - a pattern seen as European electricity prices rose more than double the EU average - if previously a household with a consumption of 4,000 kWh paid 1,171 euros a year, now the amount has risen to 1,737 euros. Gas prices have risen even more, though European gas prices later returned to pre-Ukraine war levels: last year, a household with a consumption of 20,000 kWh paid 1,184 euros in annual terms, and now it is 2,787 euros. 

Energy costs for the average German household are 52 percent higher than a year ago, adding to EU inflation pressures, according to energy contract sales website Check24. In a press release, the company said the wholesale electricity price was at €122.93 per megawatt-hour in February 2022, compared to €49 this time last year, while in the United States US electricity prices climbed at the fastest pace in 41 years. In addition, electricity prices on the power exchange haven been rising rapidly since Russian troops invaded Ukraine, comparison portal Strom Report said. Costs for heating rose the most, triggered by the high gas price (105 euros per megawatt-hour on the wholesale market) and around 100 USD per barrel of oil – its highest price since 2014. Driving also became more expensive with costs for petrol up 25 percent and diesel 30 percent, Check24 said.

The German government has decided on relief measures for low-income households, including a 200 billion euro energy shield, in response to high consumer energy costs. In July, it will abolish the renewables levy on the power price, saving consumers around €6.6 billion annually. In a reform proposal released this week, the ministry for economy and climate also detailed how it will legally oblige power suppliers to reduce their power bills when the levy is abolished.

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Doug Ford's Hydro One firing vow targets CEO pay, the utility's board, and privatization, amid Ontario politics over electricity rates, governance, and control, raising questions about legal tools, contracts, and impacts on customers and taxpayers.

Key Points

Ford vows to oust Hydro One's CEO and board to curb pay and signal rate restraint, subject to legal and governance limits.

✅ Province lacks direct control post-privatization

✅ Possible board removals to influence executive pay

✅ Impact on rates, contracts, and shareholders unclear

Ontario PC Leader Doug Ford is vowing to fire the head of Hydro One, and its entire board if he's elected premier in June.

Ford made the announcement, calling President and CEO Mayo Schmidt, Premier "Kathleen Wynne's $6-Million dollar man," referring to his yearly salary and bonuses, which now add up to $6.2 million.

"This board and this CEO are laughing themselves to the bank," Ford said.

However, it's unclear how Ford would do that since the province does not control the company anymore.

"We don't have the ability to go out and say we are firing the CEO at Hydro One," PC energy critic Todd Smith said while speaking to reporters after Ford's remarks.

#google#

However, he said "we do have tools at our disposal in the tool box. The unfortunate thing is that Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals have just let those tools sit there for the last couple of years and [have] not taken action on things like this."

Smith declined to provide details about what those tools are, but suggested Ford would have the right to fire Hydro's board.

He said that would send a message "that we're not going to accept these salaries."

Smith says the Ontario gov still has the right to fire Hydro One board. What about their contracts? Pay them out? Smith says they don't know the details of people's contacts

We will not engage in politics,' Hydro One says

A Hydro One spokesperson said the amount customers pay to compensate the CEO's salary is the same as before privatization — two cents on each monthly bill.

"We will not engage in politics, however our customers deserve the facts," said the email statement to CBC Toronto.

"Nearly 80 per cent of the total executive compensation package is paid for by shareholders."

Ontario NDP MPP Peter Tabuns says Ford is pro-privatization, and that won't help those struggling with high hydro bills. (Michelle Siu/The Canadian Press)

Peter Tabuns, the NDP's energy critic, said his government would aim to retake public control of Hydro One to cap CEO pay and control the CEO's "outrageous salary."

But while he shares Ford's goal of cutting Schmidt's pay, Tabuns blasted what he believes would be the PC leader's approach.

"Doug Ford has no idea how to reign [sic] in the soaring hydro bills that Ontario families are facing — in fact, if his threats of further privatization include hydro, he'll drive bills and executive salaries ever higher," he said in an email statement.

The only plan we've heard from Doug Ford so far is firing people and laying off people.- Glenn Thibeault, Energy Minister

​Tabuns says his party would aim to cut hydro bills by 30 per cent.

Meanwhile, Liberal Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault said Ford's plan will do nothing to address the actual issue of keeping hydro rates low, comparing his statement Thursday to the rhetoric and actions of U.S. President Donald Trump.

"The only plan we've heard from Doug Ford so far is firing people and laying off people," Thibeault said.

"What I'm seeing a very strong prevalence to is the person running the White House. He's been doing a lot of firing as well and that's not been working out so well for them."

Wynne government has taken steps to cut hydro bills, including legislation to lower electricity rates in Ontario.

Hydro prices have shot up in recent years prompting criticism from across Ontario. Wynne made the controversial move of privatizing part of the utility beginning in 2015.

By Oct. 2017, the Ontario Liberal government's "Fair Hydro Plan" had brought down the average household electricity bill by a 25% rate cut from the peak it hit in the summer of 2016. The Wynne government has also committed to keep rate increases below inflation for the next four years, but admits bills will rise significantly in the decade that follows as a recovery rate could drive costs higher.

Ford blasted the government's moves during a Toronto news conference, echoing calls to scrap the Fair Hydro Plan and review other options.

"The party's over with the tax payer's money, we're going to start respecting the tax payers," Ford said, repeatedly saying the money spent on Hydro One salaries is "morally indefensible."

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Ontario Clean Energy Adjustment lowers hydro bills by shifting global adjustment costs, cutting time-of-use rates, and using OPG debt financing; ratepayers get inflation-capped increases for four years, then repay costs over 20 years.

Key Points

A 20-year line item repaying debt used to lower rates for 10 years by shifting global adjustment costs off hydro bills.

✅ 17% average bill cut takes effect after royal assent

✅ OPG-managed entity assumes debt for 10 years

✅ 20-year surcharge repays up to $28B plus interest

Ontarians will see lowered hydro bills for the next 10 years, but will then pay higher costs for the following 20 years, under new legislation tabled Thursday.

Ten weeks after announcing its plan to lower hydro bills, the Liberal government introduced legislation to lower time-of-use rates, take the cost of low-income and rural support programs off bills, and introduce new social programs.

It will lower time-of-use rates by removing from bills a portion of the global adjustment, a charge consumers pay for above-market rates to power producers. For the next 10 years, a new entity overseen by Ontario Power Generation will take on debt to pay that difference.

Then, the cost of paying back that debt with interest -- which the government says will be up to $28 billion -- will go back onto ratepayers' bills for the next 20 years as a "Clean Energy Adjustment."

An average 17-per-cent cut to bills will take effect 15 days after the hydro legislation receives royal assent, even as a Nov. 1 rate increase was set by the Ontario Energy Board, but there are just eight sitting days left before the Ontario legislature breaks for the summer. Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault insisted that leaves the opposition "plenty" of time for review and debate.

Premier Kathleen Wynne promised to cut hydro bills and later defended a 25% rate cut after widespread anger over rising costs helped send her approval ratings to record lows.

Electricity bills in the province have roughly doubled in the last decade, due in part to green energy initiatives, and Thibeault said the goal of this plan is to better spread out those costs.

"Like the mortgage on your house, this regime will cost more as we refinance over a longer period of time, but this is a more equitable and fair approach when we consider the lifespan of the clean energy investments, and generating stations across our province," he said.

NDP critic Peter Tabuns called it a "get-through-the-election" next June plan.

"We're going to take on a huge debt so Kathleen Wynne can look good on the hustings in the next few months and for decades we're going to pay for it," he said.

The legislation also holds rate increases to inflation for the next four years. After that, they'll rise more quickly, as illustrated by a leaked cabinet document the Progressive Conservatives unveiled Thursday.

The Liberals dismissed the document as containing outdated projections, but confirmed that it went before cabinet at some point before the government decided to go ahead with the hydro plan.

From about 2027 onward -- when consumers would start paying off the debt associated with the hydro plan -- Ontario electricity consumers will be paying about 12 per cent more than they would without the Liberal government's plan to cut costs in the short term, even though a deal with Quebec was not expected to reduce hydro bills, the government document projected.

But that was just one of many projections, said Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault.

"We have been working on this plan for months, and as we worked on it the documents and calculations evolved," he said.

The government's long-term energy plan is set to be updated this spring, and Thibeault said it will provide a more accurate look at how the hydro plan will reduce rates, even as a recovery rate could lead to higher hydro bills in certain circumstances.

Progressive Conservative critic Todd Smith said the "Clean Energy Adjustment" is nothing more than a revamped debt retirement charge, which was on bills from 2002 to 2016 to pay down debt left over from the old Ontario Hydro, the province's giant electrical utility that was split into multiple agencies in 1999 under the previous Conservative government.

"The minister can call it whatever he wants but it's right there in the graph, that there is going to be a new charge on the line," Smith said. "It's the debt retirement charge on steroids."

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