ATCO seeks to delay hearing on excess profits for appeal process
Global News
ATCO Gas delivers natural gas to 1.3 million customers, about 82 per cent of Alberta homes and businesses.
A prominent Alberta utility is seeking to delay a hearing on appropriate remedies for gas and electricity rates the province’s utilities regulator says were neither reasonable nor justified.
ATCO Utilities, in a letter sent late last month to the Alberta Utilities Commission, disagrees with the commission’s ruling and says it’s premature to proceed until appeal processes are complete.
“(The decision) seemed to change the rules after the fact,” Melanie Bayley, president of ATCO Electric, said in an interview. “We disagree that rates weren’t fair and justified.”
ATCO Gas delivers natural gas to 1.3 million customers — about 82 per cent of Alberta homes and businesses. ATCO Electric delivers power to about 230,000 customers in north and east-central Alberta.
In June 2023, Alberta’s Utilities Consumer Advocate asked the commission to look into profits made by the two companies in 2021 and 2022.
Like other Alberta utilities, the companies operate under a series of five-year agreements with the regulator that permit them to make a rate of profit within an agreed-upon range.
If actual profits exceed that range, the utility must prove they came from increased efficiency or greater productivity. If it can’t, the regulator may conclude the design of the five-year deal is flawed.
It may then reopen the deal and consider what should be done about the under- or overpayment.
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