Mayor Cal Huntley isn’t exactly electrified by proposed hydro hikes that could cost the City of Flin Flon at least $300,000 in the coming years.
Manitoba Hydro says it needs double-digit rate increases in each of the next five years. With compounding, such hikes would see the municipality’s electricity bills soar at least 61 per cent by 2021.
Huntley said approval of the double-digit increases would be “a bit criminal.”
“I don’t know how we went from a Crown corporation that was very well funded to the point we’re at right now,” said Huntley.
“If [the city] wanted to do something like that with regards to our utilities, we’d have a public meeting and there would be a discussion and there would be an awful lot of resistance to that. So it’s sort of out of our control, but we’re certainly going to express our displeasure and whenever the costs go up exponentially like that, it’s of concern.”
Huntley said council would make its concern known to provincial ministers as well as through the Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM) lobbying organization.
The city currently spends about $500,000 a year on electricity. Increases of 10 per cent in each of the next five years would raise that amount to $805,000 by 2021.
The proposed rate hikes may not come to fruition, however, as there is a chance Manitoba Hydro will ask for lower increases or be turned by the Public Utilities Board, which has the final say over rates.
According to CBC, the Manitoba government also plans to create a new Crown corporation, known as Efficiency Manitoba, to encourage energy conservation and ease possible rate increases.
The city’s largest consumers of electricity are the sewage plant, water plant and Whitney Forum.
