Natural gas and electric rates news

Natural gas Quarterly Rate Service

We received approval for a Primary Gas Rate change effective August 1, 2020. This rate change results in an annual bill increase for a typical residential customer of 2.7% or approximately $14 per year. For larger volume customers, annualized bill impacts range from an increase of 2.7% to 6.4% depending on the rate class and level of consumption.

This rate change is a result of changes to the forecast price that Centra pays for natural gas and the amounts in gas deferral account.

The Primary Gas Rate for all Quarterly Rate Service customers will increase to 9.32¢/m³ effective August 1, 2020. The price that we pay for this Primary Gas supply option is passed directly on to customers without any markup. As a result, we do not make any profit on the sale of Primary Gas.

Natural gas Fixed Rate Service

The Fixed Rate Service is offered to natural gas consumers on a periodic basis throughout the year. It provides residential and commercial customers the option to lock in their Primary Gas rate for a 1, 3, or 5-year term through Manitoba Hydro.

• Read more about buying natural gas, including fixed rate primary gas.

• Natural gas sales service – Billed Rate Schedule (PDF, 61 KB).
• Schedule of Sales and Transportation Services and Rates (PDF, 577 KB), including:
  • Appendix A - Approved Rates;
  • Appendix B - Company Labour Rates;
  • Appendix C - Transportation Service Balancing Fees.

Electricity rates news

On August 12, 2020, the Public Utilities Board of Manitoba (PUB) issued Order 100/20 directing changes to the electricity rates of most customers effective September 1, 2020 arising from the Manitoba Court of Appeal June 9th ruling. This ruling determined a past PUB directive requiring Manitoba Hydro to create a First Nations On-Reserve Residential (FNORR) customer class, and to maintain the rate for this class at the August 1, 2017 level, violated existing legislation that prevents Manitoba Hydro from creating a class of customers based solely on a region of the province where the customers are located.

In Order 100/20, the PUB directed Manitoba Hydro to migrate all FNORR customers to the existing Residential customer class and adjust their rates to the PUB-approved Residential energy rate of 8.730¢/kWh and basic charge of $8.61 effective September 1, 2020. This results in a rate increase of 6.5% or bill impact of $13.88 per month for the former FNORR customers, assuming monthly usage of 2,500 kWh. In approving the Residential class rate in effect September 1, 2020, the PUB directed Manitoba Hydro to decrease the electricity rates of most other customer classes by an average of 0.10% which represents the incremental rate increase that had been applied to the rates of other customer classes in order to maintain a 0.0% rate increase for the FNORR customer class in June 2018. This results in a monthly bill reduction of $0.11 for a residential customer without electric heat using an average of 1,000 kWh/month and $0.21 for a residential customer with electric heat using an average of 2,000 kWh/month.

The PUB also directed Manitoba Hydro to maintain Diesel Zone Residential class rates at the August 1, 2017 approved energy rate of 8.196¢/kWh and basic charge of $8.08.

The PUB’s Order approving the rate change may be accessed through the PUB’s website.

• PUB Order 100/20 and First Nations On-Reserve Residential Customer Class (PDF, 104 KB);
• Electricity – Billed Rate Schedule (PDF, 146 KB).