CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. - Maritime Electric and the City of Summerside took a disagreement on paying for electricity to the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission (IRAC) this week.
While Summerside supplies many of its customers with electricity, it is also a customer of the Island utility.
The city has been seeking a discount or special rate on the transmission system, but Maritime Electric argued its costs would be the same.
“If we don’t charge them the same rate we charge others using the transmission system, essentially we have to collect those costs from all the other customers on P.E.I.,’’ said Kim Griffin, spokeswoman with Maritime Electric.
Griffin said there were two issues argued before IRAC, one being whether or not radial lines should be included in its Open Access Transmission Tariff (OATT) calculation.
Maritime Electric modelled its OATT on NB Power.
“All of those costs are born by our customers on Prince Edward Island. You can’t just take a piece of it and just pay for that.’’
Secondly, Maritime Electric argued that rates should be the same for everyone no matter where someone is on the system.
Griffin said the city agrees with almost everything in OATT other than those two fundamental points.
“We believe that it’s fair, open and transparent and there is no special treatment and that you just use a part of (the system) and pay part of it.’’
Back in 2007, the government of the day was working on a plan to develop and encourage wind development in the province, and OATT was established as a sort of rules-of-the-road guide.
Griffin said it means anyone coming to P.E.I. wanting to use the transmission system, no matter the location in the province, would understand the rules and how much it would cost to do business.
“We operate under the postage stamp philosophy. What essentially it means is our customers have paid for the system on Prince Edward Island and there is one transmission system, one electrical system under Maritime Electric.
“If I mail a letter, whether it’s in Morell or Tignish or Charlottetown or Brackley, it’s the same cost . . . we all cover those costs, pay for those costs, but it’s the same amount to mail a letter. We look at our system and say that principle should be the same for our electricity system.’’
Griffin said OATT was put in place so that everyone was treated the same when it came to access to the transmission system.
“If we treat one customer differently; if we give a customer an exception to that then fundamentally we still have the same costs, so those costs will have to be distributed to all our other customers on P.E.I. To be fair and open and transparent it’s one cost no matter where you are in the system and it’s the same costs for everyone.’’
