VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 18, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — At this time, the British Columbia Utilities Fee (BCUC) directed BC Hydro to refund $693,000, plus curiosity, in funds it collected from Gitga’at First Nation (GFN).
Since 2014, BC Hydro has been gathering $85,000 per 12 months from GFN beneath its Electrical energy Service Settlement, along with the charges GFN pays for electrical service beneath BC Hydro’s electrical tariff. The tariff outlines the authorized phrases, situations, and charges for electrical energy service.
On April 5, 2022, the BCUC acquired a criticism from GFN concerning the annual cost and established a listening to to evaluate the criticism.
Following an open and clear public evaluate course of, the BCUC decided that the annual cost BC Hydro collected from GFN is a fee for electrical energy service. This fee had not been reviewed and authorized by the BCUC, and the phrases within the Electrical energy Service Settlement requiring fee of the Annual Cost have been discovered to be unenforceable.
The BCUC directed BC Hydro to refund GFN the whole lot of the annual cost it has collected since 2014, plus curiosity, throughout the subsequent six months.
For extra details about the continuing or the BCUC’s resolution, please go to the continuing web page or Order G-247-23.
Background
Gitga’at First Nation is a distant neighborhood positioned in Hartley Bay, BC, which is a part of BC Hydro’s Zone II service space. The neighborhood has been receiving electrical energy service from BC Hydro since 2014, in accordance with the Distant Group Electrification Program.
BC Hydro has an obligation beneath part 63 of the Utilities Fee Act (UCA) to hunt the consent of the BCUC, “to instantly or not directly, in any means cost, demand, gather or obtain from any particular person for a regulated service supplied by it, or to be supplied by it, compensation that’s better than, lower than or apart from that specified within the subsisting schedules of the utility relevant to that service and filed beneath [the UCA].”
Concerning the BCUC
The BCUC is an unbiased regulatory physique, answerable for regulating BC’s vitality utilities, obligatory car insurance coverage charges, and intra-provincial pipeline charges. It’s the BCUC’s position to stability the pursuits of ratepayers with the pursuits of the companies it regulates. The BCUC carries out truthful and clear evaluations of issues inside its jurisdiction and considers public enter the place public curiosity is impacted. The BCUC can be the Administrator of BC’s Gasoline Value Transparency Act and is answerable for gathering and publishing details about gasoline and diesel actions in BC, in an effort to advertise competitiveness and public confidence within the gasoline market.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Krissy Van Loon
Supervisor, Communications
Cellphone: 604.660.4727
E mail: [email protected]
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