Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
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Changes to SaskEnergy rates proposed by the Crown corporation in June have been approved by Saskatchewan’s Rate Review Panel.
Earlier in the summer, SaskEnergy made an application to the panel seeking to drop its commodity rate from $4.20 per gigajoule to $3.30 per gigajoule on Oct. 1, along with a five per cent hike on the delivery service rate to take effect at the same time.
According to SaskEnergy, the changes would drop the average customer’s bill by about $5.66 per month, which works out to just under $68 in savings per year.
On Thursday, the panel recommended to the minister responsible for SaskEnergy, Dustin Duncan, that the commodity rate be dropped to $3.20 per gigajoule, lower than SaskEnergy’s initial application.
But while the panel recommended the minister apply the five per cent hike to delivery rates as proposed, it recommended that increase be approved “with the provision that no further increases occur during the 2024-25 fiscal year.”
The review panel also recommended that SaskEnergy set a deadline to make the conversion to billing in energy, and called on the corporation to “consider and introduce further strategies that will reduce the trend of increasing (operating, maintenance and administrative) expenses.”
In June, Don Morgan — then the minister responsible for SaskEnergy — said the changes were timely, with affordability a growing concern in the province.
“Thanks to a drop in the market price of natural gas, as well as SaskEnergy’s continued focus on price risk management, SaskEnergy is able to cut the commodity rate for its customers,” Morgan said in a media release issued in June.
“SaskEnergy’s commitment to provide stable natural gas rates to the people and businesses of Saskatchewan helped shield customers from the volatile price fluctuations we saw in 2022, both across the country and the world.”
The recommendations from the panel will still need to be reviewed by the provincial government before a final decision is made by Saskatchewan cabinet ministers.
