Hydro One: the news is bad, bad and even worse

Hydro One’s litany of bad news

Shortly after Hydro One’s CEO Mayo Schmidt announced in July that Hydro One would acquire Avista Corporation of Spokane, Washington, it’s been a litany of bad news for him and the shareholders.

Bad News # 1.

The worst bad news was a recent one by the OEB in respect to the allocation of a large part of Hydro One’s rate increase request, associated with deferred income tax relative to their transmission business.   The note in their recently released 3^rd Quarter report states: “On November 9, 2017, the OEB issued a Decision and Order that modified the portion of the tax savings that should be shared with ratepayers. This proposed methodology would result in an impairment of Hydro One Networks’ transmission deferred income tax regulatory asset of up to approximately $515 million. If the OEB were to apply the same methodology for sharing in Hydro One Networks’ 2018-2022 distribution rates, for which a decision is currently outstanding, it would result in an impairment of Hydro One Networks’ distribution deferred income tax regulatory asset of up to approximately $370 million.”

Hydro One was not pleased and as a result are appealing the ruling by the OEB to the Ontario Court of Appeals. They hope the decision will result in a 100% benefit for the shareholders and nothing for the ratepayers instead of the 29% allocated by the OEB.

Bad News # 2. and # 3.

Another bit of recent bad news was related to the ruling of the Alaskan regulators who  rejected the acquisition of Alaska Electric Light and Power Company (an Avista subsidiary) by Hydro One.  Interestingly enough, the rejection came even though Hydro One have guaranteed the regulators (via the Avista Corporation’s application to allow the takeover) a 10-year rate reduction which is estimated to reduce Avista’s revenue by US$31 million.

Bad News # 4.

Almost six months ago, Hydro One submitted a rate application to the OEB that, if fully granted, would increase average residential distribution rates by $141 annually. This was right in the midst of all the chatter about the Fair Hydro Plan the Ontario government was promoting.  When confronted with questions related to that application, the Premier declared to the Elliot Lake Standard: “It’s the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) that sets the rates. The Ontario Energy Board sometimes accepts increases and sometimes they don’t.”  Most ratepayers know that setting rate increases has become the purview of the Minister of Energy and the Premier who decreed rates would be reduced by 25% via the Fair Hydro Act so the claim was disingenuous.  Nevertheless, perhaps the OEB took a signal from the Premier’s message?  What they did was schedule a series of open-house meetings at nine locations in the province.  One should suspect those attending the meetings were not there to support the rate increases!  The OEB is still weighing the Hydro One submission and what they heard at the community events.

Bad News # 5.

Yet another piece of recent bad news came from Spokane, Washington when Avista announced their 3^rd Quarter earnings were down 63% from US$12.2million to US$4.5million of the comparable 2016 Quarter. (Could someone please tell me why Hydro One is buying Avista Corp. and paying [US $5.3 million] 45 times current earnings, suggesting there are synergies that will result in savings and benefits to both sets of ratepayers separated by 3,687 km of driving miles?)

Bad News # 6.

Back in August 2016 the City of Orillia agreed to sell Orillia Power Distribution for $26.3 million (30 times 2015 earnings) and Hydro One dutifully submitted the agreement to the OEB for approval. Shortly after Hydro One announced their planned purchase of Avista, the OEB stated “In an order dated July 27, the board said it had determined “that the hearing of this application will be adjourned until the OEB renders its decision on Hydro One’s distribution rate application.”  Energy board staff found that rates proposed for previously acquired utilities in Hydro One’s distribution rate application

“suggest large distribution rate increases for some customers” in future.”  Hydro One resubmitted the application and the OEB’s response was: “On October 24, 2017, the OEB issued a Procedural Order in response to Hydro One’s Motion to Review and Vary, with key dates for filing additional materials on the Motion, hearing date, and filing of reply submissions.”

 Bad News # 7

On November 10, 2017 Hydro One released their 3^rd Quarter results: they were disappointing, with distributed power dropping by 395 GWh (gigawatt hours) or 6% compared to the same quarter in 2016. That reflected itself in a revenue drop of 3.7% or $14 million (net of cost of power) despite additional revenue coming from OEB approved rate increases.  The overall drop in consumption in the province also reflected itself in a significant drop in average peak demand (down 9.3%) which would have resulted in a revenue drop if not for the OEB’s approval of transmission rate increases, pushing revenue up by $27 million.

The end result was a $15 million (-6.3%) drop in net income despite the year over year rate increases for both the distribution and transmission businesses. Interestingly Hydro One blamed “milder weather” as the cause of the consumption and peak demand drops whereas Environment Canada reported “From June 20 to July 31, Toronto hit 30 degrees just seven times, compared with 24 days in 2016” but perhaps “milder weather” insofar as Hydro One is concerned references cooler weather or simply reduced consumption due to the cost burden on ratepayers?

 Perhaps the stream of bad news that Hydro One is currently suffering from will allow the company’s executives time to reflect on the decade of bad news Ontario’s ratepayers have experienced as a result of their inability to keep our rates from climbing at a multiple of the cost of living.

Parker Gallant,

November 14, 2017