Customers fuming over sky-high power bills, but N.L. utility says cold and wind are to blame

Malone Mullin · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 05, 2025 4:30 AM EST | Last Updated: March 5

Sheri Durdle opened her energy measure past week to find she owed Newfoundland's lone inferior institution astir treble what she's utilized to paying.

"The archetypal happening I thought was, did I hide to wage past month?" the St. John's pistillate said.

Durdle, who lives successful a tiny flat and keeps a adjacent oculus connected her thermostats, says her February measure from Newfoundland Power astir deed $300.

Before this year, her highest measure had been $150.

"I don't caput paying the measure if I utilized $300 worthy of power," Durdle said successful an interrogation Friday. "I person nary occupation paying the bill. I don't privation to wage for thing I person not used."

Durdle is among throngs of radical posting online and contacting CBC News astir the staggering costs of power this winter. Some of those disgruntled customers accidental they've had their powerfulness usage sprout up to levels they've ne'er seen before, contempt heating their homes with oil oregon wood stoves.

Lori Ann Bryant of Goobies, N.L., says she heats her location with an businesslike boiler system, and she's mindful of however overmuch powerfulness she uses connected a regular basis. She besides says her measure astir doubled compared to this clip past year.

"I beryllium successful the acheronian astatine night. I person candles burning. I person blankets on," Bryant said. "To get a near-$700 bill? It's conscionable impossible."

Bryant says she hasn't been location for astir of the past month, with her vigor turned mode down. When she called Newfoundland Power to quality her latest bill, she says a typical told her that her powerfulness measure goes up erstwhile she's not astatine home.

"It didn't marque sense," she said. "Now I have to take betwixt my owe and the powerfulness bill."

Both Bryant and Durdle are calling for an autarkic probe into Newfoundland Power, which is owned by Fortis Inc., a North American inferior institution that owns $73 cardinal successful assets crossed the continent.

PC Leader Tony Wakeham echoed that request connected Tuesday, saying successful quality merchandise that helium wrote to the Public Utilities Board asking them to motorboat a probe into spiking bills this winter.

"It is successful the public's champion involvement for the PUB to analyse this matter," Wakeham wrote.

"We indispensable find whether the increases are morganatic oregon if determination are immoderate errors, discrepancies oregon underlying factors liable for rising energy costs."

Cold and upwind to blame, inferior says

Glenda Power, spokesperson for Newfoundland Power, says bitter acold and precocious winds lend substantially to powerfulness usage, arsenic heating systems person to enactment harder to support a dependable somesthesia wrong the home.

She says complaints astir accrued powerfulness usage are communal during the wintertime months.

"Increased usage doesn't mean you've turned your thermostat up," Power told CBC connected Monday.

Power says the inferior institution began phasing successful integer meters respective years ago, and they're present contiguous successful each homes crossed the province. The meters are taxable to rigorous investigating and controls, she said, and request to beryllium compliant with the standards acceptable retired by Measurement Canada, a national bureau that regulates devices utilized to complaint customers.

Power says those meters are regularly sampled and sent to accredited investigating facilities arsenic needed. If 1 metre is broken, Power says the inferior volition regenerate the full batch.

"I conscionable privation to guarantee our customers you'll ne'er wage for powerfulness you didn't use," Power said.

"What we're seeing is simply a lawsuit of acold weather, precocious winds, impacting usage."

But the meters themselves, the province's user advocator says, are portion of the problem: they're outdated, and don't let customers to show their energy usage successful existent time.

Dennis Browne says he's been pushing for years to person Newfoundland Power instal astute meters, which inferior companies employment successful astir each different jurisdiction crossed the country. They've repeatedly refused, helium says.

"These astute meters should person been successful present 2 years ago," helium said. 'Why Newfoundland Power wouldn't privation it is beyond explanation."

For now, Browne says customers who privation to quality their usage should marque a ceremonial ailment to Newfoundland Power and petition the institution cheque their meters. They tin then follow up with the Public Utility Board, which tin analyse idiosyncratic cases, helium said.

But it's small consolation for customers present hundreds of dollars retired of pocket, inactive wondering however it's imaginable a fewer weeks of acold — and a specified seven per cent complaint hike past August — could construe to specified a stunning spike connected paper.

"It makes nary consciousness however people's powerfulness bills tin spell up 50 per cent … it's similar they won't admit that determination could beryllium a problem," Durdle said. "There's thing wrong."

Durdle, a azygous parent of two, says the wealth she'll person to nonstop to Newfoundland Power volition travel retired of her market fund for the month. 

"You person 1 company. Who's going to look into it?" she said.

"Something's not adding up."

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