The Ontario Government revised the Global Adjustment(GA) Class A rules, June 26th, 2020:
For the Class A customer there will be a two part impact to this decision:
<There may be adjustments and we will stay on top of these and related issues>
Class A customers prior to 2020
Class A Customer’s peak demand factor (pdf) in 2020 will be frozen. They do not have to worry about reducing their peak hour during a provincial peak which would have determined their pdf for 2021 (under the old rules).
Therefore, if their existing pdf was low in 2020 – great. If it was high and they had hoped to lower it – ‘too bad for you’.
New Class A customer in 2020
New Class A customers, that want to reduce their pdf still can. They will need to reduce their hourly demand during one or more of the 5 provincial peaks to determine their pdf for the June 15th “Decision #1” deadline in 2021. The adjustment period is July 1st 2020 to June 30th 2021. This is the same rule as before.
These customers will have their new pdf for June 15th, 2021, “Decision #1” – Details to be confirmed.
By the time June 15th, 2021 comes around – expect additional changes. There have been plenty of discussions on the challenges of Class A/B.
Who will be impacted the most:
i) Firms that provide alerts for the peak hour
ii) Firms that provide solutions for Class A customers: battery storage, on site generation, etc.
iii) Companies that have invested in assets to reduce their hourly peak during a provincial peak hour
Who will be impacted indirectly:
Other rate payers make up for the savings achieved by Class A customer’s “GA Busting” tactics.
As far as relief to Ontario’s ratepayers:
It is unclear where the ‘relief’ will come from. Global Adjustment Monthly cost is still over $1B/month
Where ‘Relief’ can come from is two fold:
1) The province can provide a practical Conservation Demand Management (CDM) framework for 2021-26 that includes programs that have been proven to work, such as OPSaver and energy audits that include Natural Gas and Electricity, to help our economic recovery and environmental performance.
2) Audit the Global Adjustment monthly cost with an aggressive target of a 10% reduction that can be used to fund future CDM.
As we keep on top of this and other related issues, we will continue to review this during our monthly Energy Management Action Plan (E-MAP) meetings. Energy@Work has helped our clients achieve over $2M in savings and want to keep the momentum growing!
