Enmax has put electricity load limiters on more than 1,500 Calgary homes this year
CBC
City-owned Enmax has finally released the number of customers it has on load limiters months after CBC News initially asked for the information.
A limiter is a device added to a meter to restrict the flow of electricity.
Stoves, dryers and other appliances that use a lot of electricity no longer work; turning on too many lights or computers will also trigger a temporary disconnection.
Charles Ruigrok, interim president and CEO of the utility, says 300 customers currently have load limiters placed on their homes.
"That's down 80 per cent from the peak prior to the removal of the winter moratorium. Interestingly enough, we had fewer people on load limiters this winter during a higher price environment than we did last winter," he said at the corporation's annual general meeting on Tuesday.
"I don't know if that's the result of perhaps more people unemployed early on in the pandemic than in this latest winter season, but the number is down fairly dramatically."
Ruigrok said Enmax hit a peak last year of close to 2,500 customers on load limiters; this year it was closer to 1,500. He said Enmax hasn't disconnected anyone so far in 2022.
"We have worked with the customers that were on the load limiters last winter to try to get them to the point where they've got perhaps a move to a budget plan that is easier for them to accommodate with their income streams," he said. "Or deferred payments and give them more time to pay."
CBC News initially asked Enmax to share this information in March, but the corporation refused. Then in May, Enmax still wouldn't share exact numbers but said households on limiters represented less than one per cent of residential accounts, and that total was down 28 per cent from last year.
At the time, a number of city councillors said they would be pushing the company for more transparency on the issue.
Mayor Jyoti Gondek says city council has not forgotten about Calgarians who have had difficulties paying their energy bills this year.
"Many residents have been caught in the downturn to a very extreme degree. People have lost their jobs. People are in jeopardy of losing their homes," she said.
"Obviously, utility rates are something that are top of mind for many, many Calgarians that are in positions of precariousness."
The city received a $62-million dividend from Enmax this year, up from $58 million in 2021.
Aggressive patients and lack of security are making nurses feel unsafe in a rural Western Manitoba emergency union, says the Manitoba Nurses Union.
Saskatoon resident Delynne Bortis knew her commute to work Tuesday morning would be particularly difficult.
WARNING: This story contains details of abuse and intimate partner violence:
The amount of money it takes for people to earn a living wage has increased across the province, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The new owner of Ontario steelmaker Stelco says his company "will not disappoint the people of Hamilton and Nanticoke," where the business's major facilities are based.
A Winnipegger is warning others about an intricate scam she says she almost fell for.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.