There’s more bad news coming for Calgary homeowners and businesses when electricity prices spike May 1.

Not only are electricity prices rising nearly 40 per cent, but the local access fee charged to Enmax customers on behalf of the city will also jump because — unlike Edmonton where it is a flat rate based on consumption — the City of Calgary fee is based on the wildly fluctuating monthly price of electricity.

That fee, charged to utilities for the right to access city land to deliver electricity to households and businesses, is passed directly onto customers and flows through the utility into city coffers.

The amount municipalities charge varies widely with Calgary consumers paying double what Edmonton consumers pay and some municipalities imposing minimal fees or no fees at all, said electricity consultant David Gray.

He said Calgary homeowners pay about $100 a year in franchise fees compared to about $50 in Edmonton.

“The City of Calgary is unique in that they apply a local access fee to both the distribution charges and the energy charges,” he said. “The City of Calgary has always been notable for being the richest and as it varies with the cost of energy it tends to exacerbate swings in the market for Calgary consumers.”

He said the fee generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually for the City of Calgary.

Critics claim the access fee is a really just a hidden tax and they are urging the province to regulate the amount that can be levied on electricity bills.

Electricity retailer Nick Clark calls the access fee “a cash snatch that should have residents of Calgary up in arms.”

“This is a windfall profit built into the tax formula,” he said in an email. “If power prices go up, then the city immediately profits, because they take 11.11 per cent of the Enmax’s regulated retail price.”

The regulated retail price is jumping from seven cents per kilowatt-hour in April likely to 10.6 cents in May due to scheduled power plant outages and the planned shutdown of a high voltage power line west of Edmonton.

Gray said the local access fee, although based on the monthly regulated rate, is also charged to customers on fixed contracts.

Two city councillors who have responsibility for Enmax declined to comment on the local access fee.

Brian Pincott said he didn’t have time to respond to an interview request last week.

City Councillor Peter Demong didn’t return calls.

Richard Truscott of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business called on the province to establish a standard formula “to put a little discipline around how much is being charged on people’s power bills to pay for this outrageous fee.”

“I think the formula should be changed to something that it consistent for every municipality and it should be something that is clear and accountable to the people who are paying the bills — the ratepayers and the small businesses across this province,” he said.

Enmax spokeswoman Doris Kaufmann Woodcock couldn’t say how much of an increase consumers will see, but suggested it would be “a fairly low amount for the average household.”

She referred questions about the fee to a city tax administrator, who couldn’t be reached.