The head of Thunder Bay Hydro says some of the costs of smart meters might be due to bad timing.
Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk reported Tuesday that the program cost nearly $2 billion, double what it was supposed to, and that the province overstated the supposed $600 million benefit of the idea by $512 million. Thunder Bay Hydro president Rob Mace said he has seen that the cost of the program was higher than anyone thought it would be.
"I'm not positive that the government when they made those estimates, how they constructed them," he said.
But the program was the first of its kind in North America to go system-wide so part of the unexpected costs could be growing pains. It was also expected that energy demands in Ontario would continue to increase, something that didn't happen during the economic downturn after 2008. In hindsight, smart meters probably aren't needed right now.
"Those peaks reduced themselves so now you have a problem in Ontario where you have surplus electricity," he said.
Ontario has some of the highest electricity rates in the country, a lot of it coming down to policy decisions like getting the province off coal, conservation programs and shifting to renewable energy. All of that has a cost and might not have an economic benefit but rather an environmental gain.
"Were those good expenditures? I guess depending on your perspective," he said.
Only around 20 per cent of a customer's bill goes back to a utility like Thunder Bay Hydro. That money goes back into the local system for everything from maintenance to customer service.
"That's really all we can manage," Mace said.
The rest goes back to the province.
