Get ready for another electricity bill jolt.

The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) has approved a Toronto Hydro plan to increase distribution rates retroactive to May 2015 and going forward to the year 2019.

The actual amount has yet to be calculated by Toronto Hydro, but the OEB had earlier notified customers that the utility had been seeking increases of $4.05 a month for an average residential customer in 2015, $2.97 in 2016, $3.29 in 2017, $5.47 in 2018 and $2.56 in 2019.

“We need time to understand the impacts of (the OEB decision), review and determine the effect it’s going to have on our long-term plan for the infrastructure and ultimately our distribution rates for our customers,” Toronto Hydro spokesperson Brian Buchan said Tuesday.

Toronto Hydro had proposed spending $2.5 billion to improve electricity infrastructure over five years.

Skyscraper growth in the downtown core is fuelling demand for electricity, as will future public transit and electric car growth, the utility says.

The OEB reviewed the infrastructure spending requests and issued a 63-page decision Tuesday.

The ruling reduces Toronto’s proposed capital budget by 10%, but does allow for increases in distribution rates to help pay for more infrastructure improvements.

According to the OEB, the new distribution rates will be implemented on March 1 2016, and will include a “rate rider” to recoup the retroactive increases.

“The OEB approximates that this decision will increase the distribution portion of the bill by 5%,” the ruling says.

This jump in hydro bills is in addition to the average $120 families will pay in hydro next year as the provincial government cuts out the debt retirement charge and Ontario Clean Energy Benefit on Jan. 1, while bringing in a new electricity support program.

“This further ingrains Ontario as one of the most expensive and uncompetitive energy jurisdictions in North America,” Progressive Conservative MPP John Yakabuski said in a statement Tuesday, regarding the provincial changes to the hydro bill.

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