LEC's goal is to provide a sustainable heating alternative for social and environmental as well as economic purposes. LEC considers the cost of using other heating alternatives when setting its rates.
Furthermore, LEC aims to provide a return to its shareholder, the City of North Vancouver, which is cost neutral for the City as well as LEC customers. The rate of return aims to match the return that the City would obtain if it invested the same amount of money in the money market. This goal is two-fold: ensure that the City is not subsidizing LEC and ensure that LEC's customers are not overly contributing to the City's general revenue.
LEC customers generally see three charges on their monthly invoices; Meter Charge, Capacity Charge and the Commodity Charge. One of these charges, the Commodity Charge, is adjusted to follow the price of gas as if customers had their own in-building boilers.
Heat Energy Rates (effective January 1, 2024)
|
Rate 1 |
Rate 2 |
| Meter Charge: |
| Charge for each Service Connection |
$35.89/month |
$193.26/month |
| Capacity Charge: |
| Charge per kilowatt multiplied by the energy capacity of the Premises |
$5.2339/kW |
$5.2339/kW |
| Commodity Charge: |
| Charge per kilowatt hour of Hydronic Energy provided to the Premises |
$0.05395/kWh |
$0.04559/kWh |
Connection fee: $94.18/kW with a minimum fee of $75,000 per building
Meter Charge
The Meter Charge is a monthly charge for each service connection serving a customer.
The charge aims to recover the capital cost of the meter and heat exchanger at the point of heat delivery, as well as the operating costs related to meter reading, maintenance and invoicing. This charge does not vary from month to month unless the rate is changed with the consent of LEC's regulator, the City.
Capacity Charge
The Capacity Charge is a monthly charge per kilowatt multiplied by the energy capacity nominated by a customer, as determined by a professional engineer qualified for such purposes and described in kilowatts.
The charge aims to recover the capital and operating costs of the boiler plants and distribution system. In essence, the capacity charge considers the cost of the heating and distribution system and allocates it to the various customers on the basis of the capacity required by each customer. As the capacity nominated to a building is constant, this charge does not vary from month to month unless the rate is changed with the consent of LEC's regulator, the City.
Commodity Charge
The Commodity Charge is a charge per kilowatt hour of heat consumed by a customer.
This charge aims to recover the cost of the energy used to generate the heat delivered to a customer. This charge varies from month to month depending on the amount of heat consumed by the customer. Presently, natural gas is the primary source of energy for LEC and the commodity charge is based on a direct recovery of FortisBC charges. Consequently, LEC's commodity charge for both Rate 1 and Rate 2 is adjusted to follow the price of natural gas set by FortisBC. The commodity charge is adjusted to follow the purchase price of 1,000 GJ (gigajoules)/month of gas under FortisBC's Rate Schedule 3.
Current Commodity Charge Adjustment (January 1, 2024)
Historical Commodity Charge Rate (July 1, 2006 – October 31, 2016)