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Tenants who moved to Wynford Tower before 2013 have electricity included in their rent.
This is usually perceived as an advantage, but the down side is that cost cannot be
reduced by economical electricity use, and tenants who are away for an extended
period see no reduction in rent. Tenants who moved to Wynford Tower since 2013 are billed monthly for electricity by Enercare, one of Ontario's plethora of approved electricity retailers. (In Quebec, Hydro Quebec took over all the electricity suppliers decades ago, which certainly reduces the number of mouths at the trough.) To permit indvidual billing, meters were installed in Wynford Tower to measure the electricity consumption of every apartment, including those for which electricity is included in the rent, so new tenants can be billed when apartments change hands. The meters are multi-channel units with no visual display (see, for example, Accuenergy). The meters send readings to Enercare at regular intervals, so the "meter reader" is a thing of the past. The electricity bill includes items for Electricity (usage), Delivery and Regulatory charges. The delivery and regulatory charges cover the cost of providing electricity service to the user, similar to the cost of providing TV, internet or cell phone service. Per the example data table below, one tenant who was away for a month had an electricity charge of $3.70 and a total bill of $25.96. The highest electricity charge from the Wynford Tower data available was $34.07 and the total bill $68.21. Thus a nine fold increase in electricity usage (from $3.70 to $34.07) increased the total bill by 2.6 times (from $25.96 to $68.21). The minimum bill that can be expected, even if away for an extended period, is in the order of $21/mo. There have been concerns that Enercare charges more than Toronto Hydro. The current Enercare rate is 10.3¢/kWh for the first 1000 kWh/mo consumed, i.e. up to $103 of electricity charge, and 12.1¢/kWh for consumption above 1000 kWh/mo. Most apartments use much less than 1000 kWh/mo. Toronto Hydro charges 8.7¢/kWh for night-time consumption (7 PM to 7 AM), 13.2¢/kWh for 6 hours during the day and 18¢/kWh for the other 6 hours during the day. This is an average daytime rate of 15.6¢/kWh (51% higher than Enercare), and an average 24 hr rate of 12.15¢/kWh (21% more than Enercare) over the 24 hour period. Saturday and Sunday are billed at 8.7¢/kWh night and day, giving an average charge over a week of 11.16¢/kWh (8% more than Enercare). Delivery and Regulatory charges are the same for all customers in Ontario. In summary, the Toronto Hydro average electricity cost is 8% higher than the Enercare cost, and the average daytime cost is 51% higher than the Enercare cost. The following 2016 data is from two Wynford Tower apartments and one small electrically heated condo supplied by Toronto Hydro (the last four sets are the condo data). An Excel slope/intercept analysis of the data indicates that the total monthly charge is given by the relation Total charge = $20.50 + 1.45*Electricity Charge. |