Sustainable Energy - News Release, March 30, 2001

-->Sustainable Energy - News Release, March 30, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 30, 2001

Ontario "did the best thing" by dedicating its electricity rate hike to debt reduction, producers say

In response to today's announcement that electricity rates are going up by 8% in Ontario, the representative of independent producers said, "the Ontario government took a very prudent step in dedicating all the revenue from the rate increase to debt reduction." IPPSO, the Independent Power Producers' Society of Ontario, is the group representing independent power producers in Ontario.

"Today's announcement shows just how urgent it is to get competition working here in Ontario. With competition, consumers will no longer have to depend on a single supplier with a single price," said Jake Brooks, IPPSO's Executive Director. He notes that because costs have been rising all around while rates have been frozen for 8 years, some kind of rate increase was probably inevitable. However, without a competitive market operating in Ontario, it's impossible to tell exactly what a fair increase should be, and consumers have few options for controlling the effect of the increase.

"We would much prefer that any rate changes be a direct result of real market forces, where competition could be the true test of accuracy of any proposed rate increases."

IPPSO also advocates the rapid decontrol or sell-off of generating plants owned by Ontario Power Generation (OPG), the primary successor to Ontario Hydro. OPG currently dominates the Ontario market owning more than 80% of the generating plants.

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For queries or suggestions, please forward to:

IPPSO, PO Box 1084 Station F, Toronto, Ontario, M4Y 2T7 Canada.
Street address: 163-C Eastbourne Ave., Toronto, Ontario M5P 2G5
(416) 322-6549 fax 416-481-5785 Internet e-mail: ippso@ippso.org

Last update: March 30, 2001 URL:http://www.newenergy.org