Your BC Hydro bill is designed to help you understand and manage the cost of your electricity usage and provide important updates related to your business. The look of your bill will vary depending on your energy consumption and rate class. An example of a Medium General Service (MGS) account bill is shown below (Large General Service customers can view an example of their bill).
1. Your business name and service address
Your business name and service address.
2. Billing Date, Account Number(s), Pay By, Please Pay
Billing Date: Date the bill was issued.
Account Number: Your account number(s). If you have more than one service location, they will be consolidated onto one itemized bill and you will see a different account number for each one.
Pay By: Payment due date. Pay your bill by this date to avoid a late charge of 1.5% per month on unpaid amounts of $30 or more.
Please Pay: Total amount owing, which includes the current bill amount plus any outstanding balances from previous bills.
3. Invoice Number
The unique number assigned to your invoice.
4. Customer service
Please call our Customer Service team at 604 224 9376 (in the Lower Mainland) or 1 800 224 9376 for questions about your bill.
In the case of a power outage, please call 1 888 769 3766.
If you are paying your bill by mail, please send to BC Hydro, PO Box 9501 Stn Terminal, Vancouver B.C., V6B 4N1.
5. Previous Bill
Amount due from your previous bill and payment(s) received.
Power Smart offers programs to help businesses save money and realize the benefits of energy saving measures.
6. Basic Charge
The Basic Charge partially recovers the fixed costs of service such as metering and billing.
7. Energy Charge
MGS accounts are charged one price for the first 14,800 kWh of use and a lower price for additional usage.
Power Smart offers programs to help businesses save money and realize the benefits of energy saving measures.
8. Demand Charge
Expressed in kilowatts (kW), electricity demand is the rate of electricity usage. Customers with an electricity demand greater than 35 kW see a Demand Charge on their bill.
Manage your demand and save
9. Daily Average Comparison
Comparison of daily average usage per billing period with previous periods.
10. Power Factor (kVarh)
Power Factor is a measure of how effectively your equipment converts electric current from BC Hydro's system to useful power output, such as heat, light or mechanical motion.
The ratio of your usable power consumption (kilowatts) to your reactive power consumption (kilovar) determines your Power Factor.
When your power factor drops below 90%, a Power Factor surcharge is applied to cover the cost of supplying additional reactive power.
The surcharge chart shows how your charges are calculated.
Save money by managing your power factor
11. Rate Rider
A Rate Rider is applied to the total of all charges, before taxes and levies. Amounts received from the Rate Rider are used to recover additional and unpredictable energy costs resulting from, for example, low water inflows and higher-than-forecast market prices.
12. Tax (HST)
HST (12%) is applicable on all electric charges (as denoted by an asterisk).
13. Bill messages
This section of the bill highlights important information about BC Hydro and your account.
14. Balance Payable
Total amount owing, which includes the current bill amount plus any outstanding balances from previous bills.
15. Additional bill messages
This section of the bill includes important information from BC Hydro.
16. Detachable portion of your bill
Detach this section of your bill and return with payment.
In the event of differences between the details noted here and the official Electric Tariff issued by BC Hydro and approved by the BCUC, the official Electric Tariff will prevail.
Please note: In early 2011, all customers will receive a 'Negotiated Settlement Credit' on their bill. This credit is a result of the BC Utilities Commission's (BCUC) final decision on BC Hydro's Fiscal 2011 Revenue Requirement Application. The overall bill impact will be a 7.29 per cent increase – down from the original 9.3 per cent interim increase that has been in place since April 2010. As a result you will see a small credit on your BC Hydro bill(s) from January to March 2011. Resulting from the BCUC negotiated settlement with BC Hydro, the rate rider will be 2.5 per cent from January 2011 to March 2011.
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