Electricity rates rising 11.2% next year

Prince Edward Islanders will be paying 11.2 per cent more for electricity when the harmonized sales tax is adopted in April.

Details of the rate increase are included in a bill tabled this week in the legislature.

Electricity rates will first jump by 2.2 per cent on March 1, and then a further nine per cent in tax will be added a month later when the HST is adopted.

Energy Minister Wes Sheridan said the rate increase in the coming year underlines the importance of a power purchase agreement the government signed with Maritime Electric in 2010.

"We were so pleased that we were able to bring forward that 14 per cent reduction two years ago and really, without doing that, it would have been a very difficult move here," said Sheridan.

"We got a very good power purchase agreement and for five years Islanders are going to come out ahead because of it."

In addition to the rate decrease in 2011, the P.E.I. Energy Accord required that new rates be negotiated this fall. The results of those negotiations are annual increases of 2.2 per cent until the accord expires in 2016.

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