Utility bills getting high.

[bigbadboss101]

Gas
Energy Charge $95.83
Admin Charge $ 7.00
Transaction Fee $28.81
Atco Fix Charge $24.45
Atco Variable Charge $22.17
Rate Riders $33.62
Manicipal franchise fee $17.25
$229.13

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by bigbadboss101
Gas
Energy Charge $95.83
Admin Charge $ 7.00
Transaction Fee $28.81
Atco Fix Charge $24.45
Atco Variable Charge $22.17
Rate Riders $33.62
Manicipal franchise fee $17.25
$229.13

26-27GJ?

[suntan]

I love rate riders and the "municipal franchise fee". Christ almighty.

[Tik-Tok]

28GJ for January, and $30 carbon tax. So i gave up a case of beer for a wearing tshirts and shorts in my house and garage. The horror.

[Inzane]

Originally posted by Sonic
we keep it 22 degrees 24/7...

How the hell do you sleep at night?

I wouldn't be able to stand that.

[OTown]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...ease-1.3980745

Next time you open your natural gas bill, get ready for potential sticker shock.

Alberta's new carbon levy is being tacked on for the very first time this month. But that's only a small portion of the charge, according to Enmax.

To help Albertans decipher those line items on an invoice, Enmax spokesperson Doris Kaufmann Woodcock appeared on The Calgary Eyeopener Monday.

Below is an abridged version of her conversation with host David Gray.

Q: So the January residential bills are starting to arrive. Can you give me a sense how much of an increase Calgarians are seeing?

A: We've certainly seen an increase in calls to our customer care lines from people who are concerned about what appear to be much higher bills. However, about 80 per cent of this increase can be directly attributed to the extended and extremely cold temperatures we've experienced this winter. In fact, back in December, some new electricity use records were set for the province. On top of that, what makes these increases stand out even more is we also had a very mild November, so people saw a sharp increase to their bills.

Q: To be clear, the increases are to natural gas, and not electricity?

A: Yes, but keep in mind, although your furnace burns natural gas to generate heat, it is run by electricity, so your costs are really impacted on both fronts. As for what accounts for the other 20 per cent, it includes things like a general increase in the cost of natural gas over the last few months, but most people are on a floating rate for their gas and these costs always fluctuate, so they'll go down as well. Also, the number of days on a bill can vary because of our meter reading cycles, which is because of a manual process. We can be impacted by things like weather and holidays. There's also a recent retroactively approved increase to the electricity admin charges by the Alberta Utilities Commission. But lastly, there is, of course, a brand new charge on people's bills — the carbon levy, which people have heard of.

hi-enmax-852
Enmax says retroactively approved increases to administrative charges also factor into increases seen by some customers. (CBC)

Q: How much of a difference is that making?

A: It's actually not as much as what most people think, but we are getting lots of questions from customers as they're really trying to wrap their heads around it. We're hearing things like, 'What does this mean for my bill? How much is it going to cost me every month? Should I try to reduce my consumption to counteract those costs?' But here are some basics on what this really means to residential customers. Firstly, the carbon levy is only being applied to your natural gas consumption, not electricity use. For now, this means that on top of the costs you pay for the gas itself, an additional $1.011 will be charged for every gigajoule of natural gas you use, and this is going to increase to $1.517 per gigajoule in 2018. Given that an average Alberta house uses about 120 gigajoules annually, most households can expect to pay an extra $120 in 2017, which makes up about three per cent of your bill. And this will rise to about $180 in 2018.

Q: So for your average home, you're talking about an extra $10 to $15 a month, is the carbon tax. Who gets a rebate on that?

A: We don't take care of administering that at all. It is a charge that is passed on to the Government of Alberta and they have set those parameters.

Q: Can you explain why both fixed and variable delivery charges have gone up?

A: For natural gas charges specifically, think of it as having three components on your bill. In the first, you're going to see the dollars charged per gigajoule for how much you actually used during the billing period. You're also going to see an administration charge, which is the cost related to Enmax's billing and customer service and a transaction fee. Then we get into the second component, which are the charges passed on to Enmax, or any retailer for that matter, by the default natural gas provider for your area. In Calgary, that's ATCO. They include the fixed charge, which is regulated by the Alberta Utilities Commission, and are literally the gas provider's cost to build and maintain the distribution system. This is a daily charge, so it goes by the number of days billed, but not your usage. The variable charge, on the other hand, which is their cost to operate the distribution system, is charged relative to your actual consumption of natural gas, so that's where you do see changes on those charges.

Q: It appears the fixed charge went up. How can it do that when it's a fixed charge?

A: It goes a little bit back to the number of days billed in a particular cycle. Again, we are impacted because it's a manual process to be reading meters, by things like weather and holiday schedules.

[03ozwhip]

well it happened to me too. 180-260

[Sonic]

Originally posted by Inzane


How the hell do you sleep at night?

I wouldn't be able to stand that.

Master bedroom is far from the furnace so it's not that hot lol plus I sleep in boxers and walk around house in shorts and no shirt, the wife is always cold and I hate wearing a shirt at home so it works out...I think it's time figure out how to work the programs though haha...dammit, the NDP is making me change my consumption habits...

[Prelude_dude]

Originally posted by Sonic
Almost fell off my chair just now... This month I will owe about $450. 1963 square foot brand new house, efficient everything including all LED bulbs... But we keep it 22 degrees 24/7...

How much was your previous months bills?

I don't think my last bill included the carbon tax yet; but i can't imagine mine going up by that much more.

Considering your house is about ~400 sqft bigger than my house and you leave your heat on 24/7; your bill sounds about right.

I used 15.420 GJ from Nov 22 to Dec 19.

[swak]

201.40 Gas/Elec in Jan.
First bill in new place, not too sure how pricy overall it is in the grand sceme of things 1400 sq/ft

[Gart]

In my lil 1959 bungalow:

Jan2016: $334
Jan2017: $402 (+~$20)

A tad higher energy usage in 2017, but comparable otherwise

Aside from my Dec9 to Jan10 $8 NDP tax, cost difference mainly attributed to the diff- in NatGas rate of 18GJ@$2.16/GJ(2016) to ~23GJ@$3.26/GJ(2017)

on Enmax floating rates
& my water consumption/sewer wasn't billed this month, so 2017 is missing another $20 or so, or whatever the cost is for 4-10 m3 now at 2017 rates.

[benyl]

Originally posted by suntan
Holy fuck you use almost double the amount of methane as me.

34.140 GJ

Sorry, it was $34 including GST. Love a tax on a tax.

[Cody D]

$650 was my Enmax, I think I kept the heat in the garage too high which definitely didn't help.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Used a hair less gas (~1.5GJ) compared to last February, but paid a bit more overall, mainly due to higher floating rate. $378 vs. $348 total bill. An unwelcome hike, but not outrageous. 1400sqft 2-storey, NG heated detached garage.

[jwslam]

$11.05 in Carbon on 10.9GJ of Gas

How did my elec use go up from 270kwh to 421 with no changes to my habits... That's the highest I've seen since... last Feb when I was actually using space heaters.

[Toms-SC]

Could be worse boyz

[bigbadboss101]

Originally posted by Xtrema


26-27GJ?

Yup

[Prelude_dude]

Originally posted by Prelude_dude
wow some of your guys bills sound so high.

I am in a ~1500 sq ft house; my bill did go up a bit, but my overall charges are no where near as high as you guys. December was pretty cold so it justifies the increase in January.

*side note* I like that Enmax now just charges this all to my Visa.

2017
Bill Date Bill Amount Due Date
Jan 16, 2017 $ 299.45 Feb 10, 2017 View
2016
Bill Date Bill Amount Due Date
Dec 14, 2016 $ 248.59 Jan 09, 2017 View
Nov 15, 2016 $ 199.03 Dec 12, 2016 View
Oct 17, 2016 $ 225.37 Nov 14, 2016 View
Sep 16, 2016 $ 210.02 Oct 11, 2016 View
Aug 16, 2016 $ 91.75 Sep 12, 2016 View
Jul 15, 2016 $ 213.52 Aug 09, 2016 View
Jun 15, 2016 $ 232.61 Jul 11, 2016 View
May 16, 2016 $ 234.38 Jun 10, 2016 View
Apr 14, 2016 $ 234.51 May 09, 2016 View
Mar 15, 2016 $ 253.34 Apr 11, 2016 View
Feb 12, 2016 $ 335.49 Mar 08, 2016 View
Jan 15, 2016 $ 235.33 Feb 09, 2016 View

Just got my Jan bill. $321.43. Used 17GJs (2 more than last month) and $11.67 Carbon Levy. Not going to break the bank on my end.

[nickyh]

I paid 135.44 for Nov 21 - Dec 18 with Enmax; that went up to $163.08 for Dec19 - Jan19.
so an extra $27.64.

475kWh of electricity $60.30
9.0m3 of water$32.60
wastewster & drainage: $52.76
waste & recyling: $14.40


From Nov 28-Dec29, I used 18.42 GJ and the bill was $141.17
Dec29 - Jan31, 17.56GJ was used and the bill was $171.92, $30.75 higher and $16.50 of that was Carbon tax.

So combined about an extra $60 over last month.

[taemo]

got our bills too, not as painful as others.
Jan 2017 - 288$
Feb 2017 - 308.32$

Because of the newer rates and me playing PC games again electricity went up by 10$
Natgas also went up by 10$