Consumer price of the energy. Doesn't include connection fees, but those are a minority of the cost. Includes special energy taxes. But not sales tax.

For a real example, I'm on flat rate and if I use 1000 kWh my monthly bill will be 211 CAD (effective rate 0.21 CAD / 0.13 EUR per kWh) including taxes, connection, delivery, everything, but without subsidy. The amount I pay after the subsidy is applied would be less at 165 CAD.

▲

belorn 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Consumer price for here in South of Sweden during October was for me €0.22 per kW/hh which include tax. On top of that I also had additional fixed connection fee and an fee based on peak consumption rate (combined those two were an extra €125 for that month). No subsidy.

The reason for the high kW/h is because limited wind/solar during that month and high gas prices which result in high market price at the power exchange. The given reason for the fixed fees is because of the need to expand transmissions and build out more reserve energy to handle the increase variability of the grid as a result of the increase use of renewables and the outcome of decommissioning a few nuclear reactors in the south of Sweden.

▲

hvb2 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Is the subsidy just to lower cost of living for the lowest incomes?

Would be very curious about the rationale for it if not. Why would you subsidize increased energy use

	▲	retrac 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It applies to most private residential and small-scale business electric use. Rationale would be getting quite political, as you might imagine. But I suppose there are several justifications that are given. One is to offset the cost to the consumer for phasing out fossil fuels. Coal has been shut down and wind and storage and new nuclear is being built. Politically it has been presented as a matter of fairness; poor people are least able to pay for increases or to retrofit. A kind of wealth redistribution. (Though when you remember large corporately-run farms are included in the subsidy it's maybe not the most progressive form of redistribution.) In Quebec where they have a great surplus of hydroelectric they also partly subsidize residential electricity with the profits of the surplus sale to the United States. The energy is so cheap there than resistive heating is cheaper than natural gas for home heating. Avoiding dependence on oil and gas imported from either the US or western Canada, or rather trying to lessen that dependence, is a standing issue for both Quebec and Ontario.
	▲	scotty79 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The argument against deregulation of energy prices is that poor people won't be able to afford it. But if you create a program that subsidizes some reasonable amount of energy per person per month the price of electricity can go as high as it needs to. I don't know if that was rationale in Canada but it's one possible rationale why government might want to aubsiduze energy usage.