PEI delays rate hike
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND - The Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission is delaying a controversial plan to change electricity rates for large residential customers to allow for more public consultation.
Maritime Electric was planning a new scheme of power rates that will eliminate the two-tier residential rate system, which gives lower rates to customers who consume a lot of electricity.
That price change was scheduled for April 1 and it would have dramatically increased electricity costs for hundreds of Island farmers.
Both Energy Minister Richard Brown and the Prince Edward Island Federation of Agriculture spoke out against the move.
The agriculture federation said the change would have pushed their electrical costs up 25 to 30 per cent.
Maritime Electric asked the regulatory board to delay the policy change, so there could be more public consultation.
The policy change was approved by the board back in 2008.
At that time, IRAC approved a Maritime Electric request to eliminate the two-tiered pricing system to customers who used large amounts of electricity. It was to be phased out over three years, and completely eliminated this April.
Related News
Longer, more frequent outages afflict the U.S. power grid as states fail to prepare for climate change
WASHINGTON - Every time a storm lashes the Carolina coast, the power lines on Tonye Gray’s street go down, cutting her lights and air conditioning. After Hurricane Florence in 2018, Gray went three days with no way to refrigerate medicine for her multiple sclerosis or pump the floodwater out of her basement.
What you need to know about the U.N. climate summit — and why it matters
“Florence was hell,” said Gray, 61, a marketing account manager and Wilmington native who finds herself increasingly frustrated by the city’s vulnerability.
“We’ve had storms long enough in Wilmington and this particular area that all…
