The Public Utilities Act requires the Public Utilities Board to review NTPC’s operations at least every three years. This process is called a General Rate Application or GRA. The last time NTPC went through this process was 2013.
This review is done to ensure that rates are fair for the customer and for the utility. Customers should not be paying for costs that are not needed to provide their electricity and the utility should be recovering all of its costs through rates.
In its GRA, NTPC tells the PUB how much it will cost to provide power to customers for the next three years, including capital, O&M, fuel and long-term debt interest. All of these items together form the revenue requirement. The revenue requirement needs to equal what is collected from customers in electricity rates. It is during the GRA process that NTPC applies to change rates to cover its revenue requirement.
NTPC preparations to file its GRA started to pick up steam in February 2016.
Phase I of the GRA determines the cost of providing our service and was filed with the NWT Public Utilities Board June 30, 2016. The, almost 1000 page, document outlines the business plan for the corporation from O&M forecasts to capital spending.
The Corporation filed Phase II of the GRA on March 1, 2017. Phase II establishes which customer groups pay what power rates, in order to recover the costs outlined in the Phase I application.
In total the Corporation answered over 1000 written questions from interestes groups and parties, on all aspects of the 2016/19 GRA. A public hearing was held during the week of July 10, which provided an opportunity for registered intervenors and the public to ask further questions of the application.
Although the core of the GRA team is relatively small, all employees contributed to the GRA process by assisting with questions, developing budgets and helping out in a professional and positive manner.
The process is almost complete, with one more round of input from intervenors and then a decision from the PUB, is expected in the fall.