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Prepare to pay more for your hydro connection, as the provincial government tries to tidy up a perverse electricity-billing system that costs utilities like Hydro Ottawa money if they do a good job encouraging conservation.

The move, being pursued by the Ontario Energy Board (which regulates electricity in Ontario), is supposed to leave your final bill unchanged: You’d pay more just to have a hookup to the power grid, but you’d pay less for the power you actually use.

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Critics say that would eliminate the biggest reason to use less electricity, by making consumption cheaper, and they’re right. And the OEB is also right that the system we have now is nutty.

If you’ve looked at your hydro bill closely, you know that among the many, many items that make up the bottom line is a “delivery charge.” That’s Hydro Ottawa’s (or Hydro One’s) take, what you pay for the high-tension lines, substations, transformers, and last wires that get electricity to your home. Part of it’s a locked-in, standard amount, part of it varies depending on how much electricity you consume.