The Ontario Energy Board oversees our local Distributing Company, E.L.K. Every 5 years, E.L.K must justify their rates. From the OEB website I found the most recent application and wanted to share some of the information in it with you.
I have entered the following Notice of Motion this morning so that we can E.L.K. representatives attend council to discuss these important issues.
NOM “That Essex Council invite E.L.K. administration to council to go over their most recent OEB application with council as the Town of Essex are the sole shareholders of E.L.K Energy”
From the OEB Website
E.L.K. Energy Inc. filed an application with the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) to change
its electricity distribution rates effective May 1, 2022. Under section 78 of the Ontario
Energy Board Act, 19981, a distributor must apply to the OEB to change the rates it
charges its customers.
As a result of this Decision and Rate Order, it is estimated that for a typical residential
customer with a monthly consumption of 750 kWh, the total bill impact will be a
decrease of $2.96 per month before taxes or 2.48%.
Asset Condition – Data Gaps
The Parties agree that ELK shall, at a minimum, address the data gaps in the manner
identified by ELK in the ELK Action Plan provided in response to 2-Staff-7(b) and use
the results from data collection to be included in the GIS asset registry as soon as
reasonably practical after the GIS has been fully implemented, and be input to an Asset
Condition Assessment that will be filed as part of the ELK’s next rebasing application.
Asset Inspection Procedure
ELK shall create a formal asset inspection procedure and file it with the OEB in this EB2021-0016, and copy to all intervenors, within 6 months of the OEB’s decision in this
proceeding.
Outage Tracking
ELK shall track outages at sub-code level for defective equipment and tree contacts based
on the sub-codes provided for these types of outages in 2-Staff-75 of the Clarification
Questions, and address ways to reduce these outages in its next rebasing application
Fault Indicators
ELK is proposing to install fault indicators. ELK shall install at a minimum those fault
indicators planned to be installed in its DSP over the next 5 years so that it is able to have
better information about momentary outages. ELK agrees to install the planned fault
indicators and to use the information available to report on momentary outages and how
to reduce them in its next rebasing application.
Reliability Commitment
The Parties also agree that ELK will create a new deferral account, called the Reliability
Commitment Account (“RCA”) which will remain in place until ELK’s next rebasing
application. If ELK does not meet either of its annual SAIDI or SAIFI reliability targets
beginning in 2024, it will credit the RCA $25,000 for each target missed per year (for a
maximum credit of $50,000 in each year). In a future proceeding where disposition is at
issue, ELK will have the opportunity to justify why any balance in the account should not
be disposed to the favour of ratepayers. The target for 2024 shall be a 4% reduction of the
2019 to 2021 average SAIDI (2.42) and SAIFI (0.80), excluding Loss of Supply and Major
Event Days. For each subsequent year, the target shall be a 4% reduction to the previous
year’s target.
Operation and Maintenance
The Parties agree that ELK will create a new variance account, called the Operation and
Maintenance Variance Account (“O&MVA”). For each year, beginning in 2022 if ELK
does not spend at least its approved test year amount of $1,420,968 annually on operations
and maintenance category of OM&A expenditures (USoA sub-accounts 5005 to 5195), it
will credit the O&MVA the difference between its actual annual expenditures and
$1,420,968. ELK will ensure that its categorization of expenditures in the various OM&A
sub-accounts are on a similar basis as that included in the 2022 forecast in included in this
application.
Tree Trimming
The Parties also agree that in support of improving service quality and reliability, ELK
shall spend a minimum of $80,000 per year on reactive and proactive tree trimming. The
Parties are generally in support of ELK’s transition from a reactive to a proactive approach
to tree trimming, and wish to ensure that the needed tree trimming activities are completed
each year.
Full Application can be found:
Click on the:
DECISION AND RATE ORDER
EB-2021-0016
