Years of increases in Ontario electricity prices are taking their toll in the London region, with more people behind on their hydro bills.

A detailed report prepared by the Ontario Energy Board shows the number of people behind on their payments to London Hydro climbed from 11,077 customers in 2013, to 11,404 in 2014 and 12,406 last year.

Higher customer arrears were also reported for St. Thomas, Woodstock, Sarnia and Chatham-Kent.

Soaring power prices in the province have been flashpoints for years under the Liberal government, with the province’s independent auditor-general, Bonnie Lysyk, last year reporting Ontarians paid $37 billion more than market price for electricity over most of the previous decade and will pay aan estimated $133 billion extra over the next 16 years because the government made political decisions about power that ignored its own experts’ advice.

One utility executive in Southwestern Ontario said there’s no escaping the fact rate increases have left many holding a financial bag they can’t bear.

“There is no doubt that the fact residential rates have increased by 56 per cent over the last 10 years has contributed to the fact more customers are in arrears, and for the ones in arrears the amounts due are generally higher,” said Alex Palimaka, senior vice present with Bluewater Power Distribution Corp., in Sarnia.

Palimaka said the biggest increase was at the start of this year.

More moderate increases are forecast in the next few years.

Provincewide, the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) found more than eight per cent of Ontario households were in arrears on their electricity bills at the end of last year, owing a total of more than $172.5 million to utilities across the province.

Besides reporting on customers behind on their bills, the OEB report details the annual amount utilities were forced to write off for the last three years — money they’ve simply given up on collecting.

Hydro One, which services most of the rural areas in Southwestern Ontario, wrote off a whopping $16.5 million in 2015.

For London Hydro, the writeoff for the same year came in at $692,000.

Those writeoffs, and the red ink owed for electricity by nearly 567,000 homes across the province, came before the Ontario government scrapped a subsidy it had been paying on hydro bills for five years — a cost of more than $1 billion a year that the government’s own cost-cutting consultants said should be eliminated.

When the so-called Clean Energy Benefit ended Jan. 1, electricity bills for most households rose an automatic 10 per cent.

The discount was paid as Ontario moved to shut down its dirty coal-fired power plants, including the giant Lambton Generating Station near Sarnia, and plunged into green energy, paying wind and solar producers far more for the juice they generated under lucrative contracts than customers were charged to buy it.

Most of the province’s wind energy production is concentrated in Southwestern Ontario, home to the biggest wind farms and the largest number of turbines.

The OEB report on hydro billings in arrears contains a detailed breakdown for utilities across the province.

Higher charges for power are part of the reason for the increase in unpaid customer bills and writeoffs, London Hydro spokesperson Nancy Hutton agreed.

But Hutton said another factor is account management.

“Definitely, more attention has to be made to making payment arrangements,” Hutton said.

While arrears have increased over the last few years, they’re about half of what they were a decade ago, she said.

Hutton attributed the shift to London Hydro moving from billing customers once every two months to billing monthly.

The city-owned utility is also making available more online tools it hopes will bring down arrears by allowing customers to track their power use.

“You can see what your consumption was on the previous day. You don’t have to wait until you get your monthly bill to find out what your electricity charge is going to be,” she said.

The website, mylondonhydro.com, also allows customers to make payment arrangements if they are unable to pay their bills in full, Hutton said.

jminer@postmedia.com

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RUNNING BEHIND

Number of residential customers in arrears on their power bills, and total owed, by utility in 2015.

London Hydro: 12,406: $2.5 million

Bluewater Power Distribution, Sarnia: 3,558; $526,906

St. Thomas Energy: 711; $53,348

Festival Hydro, Stratford: 1,394; $193,273

Woodstock Hydro Service: 647; $103,333

Entegrus, Chatham-Kent: 2,385; $262,426