Electricity fees

The connection fee covers a portion of the costs associated for FortisBC personnel to go to the residence and turn the power on.

According to the Tariff, the charge for a meter connection or manual reconnection will be $135.00.

Where two or more meter connections or transfer of accounts are to be made for one Customer at the same time at one location, the charge shall be $135.00 for one connection or transfer and $34.00 for each additional meter.

If it is necessary to perform the above functions outside regular business hours and during overtime hours, the $135.00 charge becomes $224.00.

When there is no personnel on shift and they have to be called out to perform the above functions, the $135.00 charge becomes $462.00.

If payment is received from a Customer and is returned by the Bank for the reason of Non-Sufficient Funds (N.S.F.) or reasons other than clerical error, the Customer will be charged a service charge of $13.00.

A deposit charge of the two highest consecutive months consumption is charged to each account if the account holder has not held an active account with FortisBC within the past year.

The only way to waive this deposit charge is to have a satisfactory credit check.

Periodically, FortisBC may review customer accounts and make any necessary changes to security deposits. This could mean the addition or removal of a security deposit as well as the increase or decrease of an existing security deposit. These adjustments can be based on the payment history and/or the consumption at the premise.

An annual interest will be paid to the customer for deposits that are held on the account. Interest ceases to be payable upon termination or transfer of the deposit back to the account.

The deposit will be refunded to the registered customer upon termination of account or if the Customer has paid all billed amounts for each and every account on or before the due date for 12 consecutive months, and has maintained credit to the satisfaction of the Company.

Customers' accounts not paid by the due date printed on the bill shall be considered in arrears. A late payment charge of 1.5% (or such rates as may be amended in the Company's filed Tariff) will be assessed each month (compounded monthly 19.56% per annum) on all outstanding balances not paid by the due date.

The customer charge is $45.28 which is applied to every two-month billing period and only applies to residential customers. If you are billed on a monthly basis, this customer charge is pro-rated to reflect how many days you are being billed for.

This charge recovers a portion of, among other things, the cost of assets that remain in place whether or not power is actually consumed. This includes not only readily visible things such as your transformer, meter and drop service, but also the distribution lines, transmission lines and substations which remain in place whether or not electricity is consumed. The charge also recovers a portion of costs of services such as billing and meter reading, which still occur even if power is not consumed. This charge does not apply to commercial customers.

The standard charge for a disconnection and subsequent reconnection of a meter shall be $271.00 provided such work can be performed during normal working hours.

The charge for installing a temporary drop service of less than 30 meters over private property shall be as prescribed in Section 17 plus $267.00 provided the temporary service can be converted to the permanent service at little additional cost. If this temporary drop service cannot be used to form the permanent service, and must be removed, the charge for installing and removing a temporary drop service of less than 30 meters shall be as prescribed in Section 17 plus $267.00 for the cost of the removal of the equipment used to supply the temporary service.

For overhead services, the charge for the relocating of a service requiring a service drop change on the same building shall be $902.00 provided such work can be performed during normal working hours. The service entrance and meter box shall be in a location satisfactory to the Company.

For upgrading of overhead and underground services, please see "construction/new service connection or upgrade – varies" section below. 

A charge of $246.00 per occurrence may be levied if a FortisBC representative attends a Customer’s Premises at the request of a Customer but, on attending, is unable to perform the requested work because the facilities required to be provided by the Customer, for this purpose, are found to be deficient.

FortisBC will design an extension if need be. For information relating to fees and contributions towards the cost of extensions, please refer to Section 16 of FortisBC’s Electrical Tariff.

All new service installations, construction, or increases in service size of existing service are applicable for connection fee charges. Please read the following and see the chart below.

(a) Residential Service, General Service, Lighting

Type III and Irrigation Customers are required to provide their Electrical Inspection Permit for verification of the service size. Where customers supply their own transformation from the primary distribution voltage, the rate for Large General Service and Industrial Service will apply. The charge for the installation of a new or upgrading of an existing service is:

Table of connection fees

According to the Tariff, the charge for transfer/set up of an account where no manual reconnection of a meter is required.