Ontarians to get one-time hydro rebates

Energy Minister Donna Cansfield will make the announcement at Queen's Park this morning.

The one-time rebates, which will appear as a credit on three million homeowners' electricity bills before the end of the year, are from the $495 million surplus in the province's electricity consumer price protection fund.

That's the amount that consumers overpaid for hydro between April 1, 2004 and March 31, 2005.

The rebates will range from $50 to $75 a household. Government sources confirmed that a family of four in a detached house can expect a $60 rebate.

Homeowners now pay a fixed price of 5 cents a kilowatt hour for the first 750 kilowatt hours of electricity and 5.8 cents per kilowatt hour for additional power. A typical Toronto home uses about 1,000 kilowatt hours of power a month.