{"id":5022,"date":"2014-12-18T17:27:32","date_gmt":"2014-12-19T00:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/?p=5022"},"modified":"2014-12-18T17:30:40","modified_gmt":"2014-12-19T00:30:40","slug":"ndp-call-for-a-reduction-in-fees-paid-by-meter-choices-b-c-hydro-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/?p=5022","title":{"rendered":"NDP call for a reduction in fees paid by Meter Choices B.C. Hydro users"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><time datetime=\"2014-12-18T11:35:02+00:00\">December 18, 2014<\/time>Posted in:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/bcndpcaucus.ca\/news_category\/bc-hydro\/\" rel=\"tag\">BC Hydro<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>VICTORIA \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0B.C. Hydro\u2019s fees to customers in their Meter Choices program are too high and should be reduced, says New Democrat spokesperson for Hydro,\u00a0<a title=\"Adrian Dix\" href=\"http:\/\/bcndpcaucus.ca\/mla\/adrian-dix\/\">Adrian Dix.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fees being charged to participants in the Meter Choices program are out of step with what other utilities charge and don\u2019t represent a reasonable cost recovery for reading the analog meters or the smart meters with the radio-off engaged,\u201d said Dix.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s clear that Hydro has set up this fee structure to punish customers who don\u2019t agree with them. That\u2019s not fair and it isn\u2019t something a public utility should be engaged in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dix has written a letter to energy minister Bill Bennett to request the fee structure be revised to be more in line with what utilities like Hydro Quebec and Fortis BC charge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cB.C. Hydro customers pay $240 per year for radio-off Smart Meter customers and $388.80 for legacy meter customers. By comparison, Fortis charges $108 per year for radio-off customers. That\u2019s a discrepancy that cannot be explained away. I hope the minister will agree with that and encourage B.C. Hydro to restructure these fees.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dix offered two suggestions for lowering these fees: scaling back what seems to be an excessive security system for the analog meters and reducing the amount of time Hydro staff are called to physically read the meters \u2013 something Fortis already does for customers in the Okanagan and West Kootenay.<\/p>\n<p>In his letter, Dix also asked the minister to clarify Hydro\u2019s policy on cancelling service in winter months. In November, a Hydro spokesperson told media on Vancouver Island that their policy was to not cancel service between November and March, yet Hydro customers have had their service disconnected as recently as last week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis kind of conflicting information does not help already inflamed tensions,\u201d said Dix. \u201cIf the utility has a policy, it should follow the policy; if that policy doesn\u2019t exist, Hydro should not be claiming it does.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A copy of Dix\u2019s letter can be found here:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/bcndpcaucus.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2014\/12\/Smart-Meter-Letter-to-Hon-Bill-Bennett-12.18.14.pdf\">Smart Meter Letter to Hon Bill Bennett \u2013 12.18.14<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/bcndpcaucus.ca\/news\/%EF%BB%BF-new-democrats-call-reduction-fees-paid-meter-choices-b-c-hydro-users\/\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">http:\/\/bcndpcaucus.ca\/news\/%EF%BB%BF-new-democrats-call-reduction-fees-paid-meter-choices-b-c-hydro-users\/<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>December 18, 2014Posted in:\u00a0BC Hydro VICTORIA \u2013\u00a0B.C. Hydro\u2019s fees to customers in their Meter Choices program are too high and should be reduced, says New Democrat spokesperson for Hydro,\u00a0Adrian Dix. \u201cThe fees being charged to participants in the Meter Choices program are out of step with what other utilities charge and don\u2019t represent a reasonable [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[214,134,58,17,103,215],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adrian-dix","category-government-bc","category-bchydro","category-bc","category-canada","category-ndp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5023,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5022\/revisions\/5023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}