BELCO Change: ‘Lower Overall Electricity Rate’
BELCO’s rates are set to change as of January 1, with the company saying the changes will result in a “lower overall electricity rate for customers.”
A spokesperson said, “BELCO would like to advise its customers that pursuant to correspondence from the Regulatory Authority dated December 22nd , 2016 and the May 13th 2016 directive from the Energy Commission [EC], the surcharge implemented as a part of the June 1, 2016 rate increase will be removed effective January 1, 2017, resulting in a lower overall electricity rate for customers.
“The May 13th EC directive was made in response to BELCO’s June 2015 rate submission for the Utility to receive a reasonable return on equity in order to fund the ongoing infrastructure investment required to deliver highly reliable electricity to Bermuda.
“It included rate increases that would provide a 7% return on equity in 2016 and 8% return on equity in 2017.
“The EC directive was issued 5 months into 2016, therefore a surcharge was applied to the base rate in order for the Utility to achieve its required return on equity for the entire year.
“Effective January 1, 2017, this surcharge will no longer be applied in the overall rate. The following chart provides the comparison of current and new rates:
So Belco has achieved it’s target return on equity but we’ve seen little in the way of infrastructure investment.
We have seen a lot of share buy-backs however which benefit management …
Yeah. So what.
They made millions and even though we have to use the cedarwood furnaces the gonna give us a break to keep us happy?
You believe this stuff?
Grab a pen and paper and make a list or cyberview the corporate makeup and shareholders and and and…..
2017. The year of the different color of the jelly bean.
I’ll wait and see until I get my bill!
we will have to wait and see !
It is definitely an election coming…. Lower Belco Rates, Jobs for 5 weeks during America’s Cup, what next!
“The May 13th EC directive was made in response to BELCO’s June 2015 rate submission for the Utility to receive a reasonable return on equity in order to fund the ongoing infrastructure investment required to deliver highly reliable electricity to Bermuda”
In summary: BELCO will stop charging more since they have enough capital for projects
BELCo will still exploit its customers with the “tactically deployed estimated bills” – how many people have been overseas for a month and had a bill higher than a month when they were on Island?
Of all evil-doers, the lot at BELCo is most to be feared. They use more ingenuity in the planning of their scalping projects and will take greater risks in carrying them out than any other monopoly in Bermuda.
That’s means your next bill will be lower. You pay for what the meter says.
This is deliberately confusing. This is not a lower rate. The rate in the last six months of 2016 was deliberately higher so that they could include a back charge for the first six months of 2016, due to the delay in the directive.
Your bill may drop in January when compared with December, but the bill for the whole of 2016 compared with 2017 will not be lower.
In fact, if you used a higher k-watt usage in the last six months of the year, compared with the first, then you were unfairly charged more than you should have been…in my opinion. A revised bill should have been calculated instead, with the cost of the catch-up spread over the last six months.
Customers want to see a return to the lower facilities charge. (Which was increased effective June 2016). That would be an actual decrease in fees. Shalom.
Am I missing something?… No mention of fuel surcharge…
Oops, just saw the article date, oh well. My question still stands …