FortisTCI rate increase takes effect from July 22

By Delana Isles

STARTING next Wednesday, July 22, FortisTCI will be adding an average of 6.8 percent to power bills across the Turks and Caicos Islands.

A statement from the June 19 meeting of Cabinet stated that members agreed for the increase to take effect this month along with the associated amendments to the regulations.

Previously, the increase was to begin on June 30, but was pushed back due to a pause in the economy caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and resultant lockdown.

In February this year, the Government had accepted the arbiter’s report that FortisTCI should be granted an increase in consumer electricity rates, as there were no legal grounds for refusing.

This decision came years after the company first applied for rate variation on July 11, 2018.

Consumers using less than 300 kilowatts, will remain at the existing rate of 0.25 cent per kilowatt.

Meanwhile, high end consumers will pay more but will have incentives to conserve energy, Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinson had announced in February.

At that time, the premier indicated that the Government was not happy with the increase “knowing and understanding its impact”, but was pleased that the most vulnerable consumers would be protected.

“Legally we have no grounds to refuse the request as we are bound by law and must take this position,” she stated.

The rate increase is broken down by customer class as follows: 5.5 percent to 5.7 percent increase in tariff of rates for residential customers and 7.9 percent increase in tariff of rates for all other customer categories.

However, even as the rate increase kicks in, consumers will continue to see decline in the fuel factor reflected in their electricity bills due to a global drop in the price of fuel.

Those declines were first reflected in the June bills.

In June, FortisTCI had advised the public of these declines, stating that by July, their forecast models show there will be a decrease of about 52 percent compared to January 2020.

The projected decline in August is about 68 percent, and in September, about 73 percent, compared to January 2020’s fuel factor, the company stated.

This is before reaching the estimated 80 percent decline in the fuel factor by October.

Current forecasts show that by October, residential customers will see their electricity bills reduced on average by about 23 to 27 percent.

Commercial customers will see a reduction on average, by about 20 percent, medium hotels and supermarkets on average by an estimated 23 percent, and large hotels on average by approximately 26 percent, compared to January 2020.

These declines, FortisTCI said, is based on the company’s internal forecast, warning that fuel prices may differ at the time of purchase as global crude and diesel commodity markets remain volatile.

In March and April, the cost of oil on the world market hit a near historic low due to disputes between oil producing countries and Russia, and reduced fuel demand because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.