Hydro One continues to roll out “Smart Meters” and “Time of use Pricing” with thousands of homes in Grey and Bruce counties going on-line in the next few months.
Spokesperson Dave Watts says there are now 15 thousand customers in the Owen Sound and Walkerton areas being billed by Time of Use — which means higher rates during peak electricity demand and lower rates in off-peak hours.
18 thousand more customers will switch to the new system over the next two months, mostly just East of Owen Sound in Sydenham township, and south in the Derby and Chatsworth areas.
Already, most customers along the lake Huron shoreline from Goderich north to Sauble Beach are using smart meters.
Customers living in the Meaford and the Blue Mountains area are also on “time of use” pricing now.
Watts says the Hydro one customers in southern Grey and Bruce counties will go to “time of use pricing” in January and February.
He says there has been few complaints about the change.
Dave Watts admits one issue has been the new bills, do not show current meter readings compared with the previous month.
He says that will change in the next six months — with readings on the bills at that time.
Meanwhile, people in Collingwood, Thornbury, Creemore and Stayner can expect to have time of use billing by July, 2011.
Collus Power Spokesman Darius Vaiciunas says that is subject to everything going according to plan, and that they should be in some form of shadow billing by the beginning of May — so people can look at their information on the web and see what the impacts might be on them.
He expects that there will be some rate changes in November and May as the process is changed to get people to shift.
