Transmission Access Charge Deferral Account True-up
ENMAX Power Corporation (“ENMAX”) applied for approval of its 2014 annual transmission access charge deferral account (“TACDA”) true-up through a rider to its tariff. ENMAX’s TACDA application consisted of a net collection of $3,796,899 for the following items:
ENMAX proposed to collect its TACDA rider effective from January 1, 2016 to March 31, 2016.
ENMAX submitted that its application was not, strictly speaking, a flow through deferral account. ENMAX noted that in accordance with Decision 2014-347, ENMAX was subject to cost-of-service regulation and its TACDA operated as a price-only deferral account. In other words, ENMAX would be kept whole for the AESO’s rates at forecast volumes, but bears the risk of billing determinants being higher or lower than forecast. Therefore, rather than comparing total system access service costs compared to actual revenue (i.e. a dollar for dollar true-up), ENMAX calculated the difference between its forecast billing determinants at forecast prices and its forecast billing determinants at actual prices.
As ENMAX did not have approved billing determinants for Q1 of 2016, it requested that the AUC apply the forecast determinants for Q4 2015 as a forecast for Q1 of 2016.
The AUC determined that ENMAX’s calculations and allocation methodologies were reasonable, in light of previous directions regarding ENMAX’s price-only deferral account. The AUC accepted ENMAX’s request to apply the Q4, 2015 forecast billing determinants as Q1 2016 billing determinants for the purposes of this decision, given their proximity to one another. However, the AUC noted that it expects ENMAX in future TACDA true-up applications to use forecast billing determinants approved by the AUC in prior proceedings.
The AUC held that ENMAX applied a simplified method to calculate the Bank of Canada monthly bank rate for the purposes of carrying costs in which the rate changed during a month. While the AUC approved the carrying costs given the relatively small amount, the AUC directed ENMAX to calculate its carrying costs based on the weighted average Bank of Canada monthly bank rate in months in which interest rates may have changed for future TACDA applications.
ENMAX submitted that the maximum bill impact for customers on a monthly basis was 6.9 percent for small commercial customers, and would therefore not cause rate shock. The AUC determined that the changes to typical customer bills were within 10 percent of the total bill and were therefore within a reasonable range and did not constitute rate shock.
The AUC therefore approved ENMAX’s net TACDA rider collection of $3,796,899, effective January 1, 2016 to March 31, 2016, as filed.
