Cost of destructive storms in Windsor-Essex may end up on your utility bill
Ice, wind and rain have put financial pressure on utility companies
The cost of this year's destructive storms that snapped utility poles and required extended responses to restore power to thousands of people across Windsor-Essex in southwestern Ontario could end up on ratepayers' bills.
Two of the area's distribution companies are tallying up expected costs following storms that officials believe are the worst in decades.
"First we had an ice storm and then we had a windstorm and now we had a flood storm," recalled Essex Mayor Sherry Bondy.
"I'm hoping that's it for the next 20 years really. We've had our share of storms here."
But Bondy, who chairs the board of directors for ELK Energy, knows that more intense storms are likely, as a changing climate is expected to produce more frequent and damaging extreme weather events in Ontario, according to a recently released report prepared this summer for the Ontario Energy Board (OEB).
"I do feel like we're going to see this more and more often."
Bondy said ELK Energy is already dealing with $100,000 worth of damage following an ice storm in February that knocked power out to thousands of people and an unknown figure connected to a wind storm that toppled trees across Essex County last July.
Those same storms were felt in Windsor, where Enwin Utilities estimated a year-to-date damage bill of a million dollars, including last week's tornadoes that ripped across the region.
Energy bills could be going up
ELK Energy is applying to the OEB for a rate increase this year that could add $4 to each customer's monthly bill in Belle River, Comber, Cottam, Essex, Harrow and Kingsville.
"Getting healthy groceries is challenging, paying hydro bills is challenging. But when when people come into our town from out of town to work on our hydro poles, we have to compensate them," said Bondy.
Distributors can apply to the OEB for what's called a "Z-factor" claim to help recover documented costs connected to things like natural disasters.
An OEB spokesperson said they've received seven of those types of applications since 2018.
Bondy said the money would go toward new switches that would allow the distributor to isolate power outages, a additional tree trimming and a pole replacement program.
"Traditionally ELK has had years and years, approximately 20 years of under spending and now we're playing catch up."
Enwin doesn't have plans to apply for a Z-factor claim at this time.
"So far we haven't tapped that avenue yet," said Jim Brown, vice-president of hydro operations at Enwin.
"We're hoping we can get by without doing that. We just need a calm year for the rest of the year."
Brown said storm damage and overtime costs to bring power back to tens of thousands of people can change each year.
"Some years are milder than others and we hardly have any big storms. This year we've had three big storms and I'm hoping this is the last."
Tree service requests hit annual numbers by August
Brown believes that each event — February's ice storm, July's wind storm and the tornadoes in August — built on damage from the previous storms.
"The ice storm and the July storm took out some the weak trees that might have been affected by this," he said.
The City of Windsor's budget variance reports show staff spent around $73,000 cleaning up after the ice storm in February.
Essex spent close to $100,000, according to Bondy.
Those earlier storms are adding to a growing list of service requests to the City of Windsor for tree maintenance.
Calls to the city listed in the open data portal online for 2023 are already past 2022 numbers as of Aug. 1.
"That's a lot," said city forester Yemi Adeyeye, whose team triaged 400 emergency calls for service following last week's tornado in Windsor.
"Climate is changing very fast and weather events are occurring in frequencies that are unexpected and also to the depth, range and scope that are unimaginable."
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