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Following two increases in the past 13 months, SaskPower is requesting another rate hike.

This one would be a 5.1-per-cent increase effective March 1 of next year.

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The Crown Corporation cites challenges of growing electricity demand, environmental commitments and an aging electrical system as reasons for the increase.

“The impact on homeowners, on people on fixed incomes, on low-income, certainly we appreciate the impact it has,” said SaskPower president and CEO Mike Marsh.

He said the company is working to keep increases “as low and as regular as we can without causing undue hardship.”

An approved rate increase will mean that someone whose power bill was $100 a month in June 2016 will pay $114.12 per month in March 2018 — about $170 more a year.

SaskPower rates went up by five per cent on July 1, 2016, and 3.5 per cent on Jan. 1.

Cumulatively, power bills have increased almost 27 per cent in the past five years, not including the proposed rate hike.