Yukoners will be seeing a 2.5-per-cent bump in their ATCO Electric Yukon bills next month.

And pending a decision by the Yukon Utilities Board, that could become a 5.2-per-cent rate increase in the spring.

After a full week of hearings in front of the board, with testimony from a variety of intervenors, ATCO’s application to increase electricity rates is moving into its final phases.

This is the first rate hike the company has applied for since 2017.

The request for a 5.2-per-cent increase must go through a process in front of the utilities board to ensure it is just and reasonable for customers.

Until that rate hike is ruled on by the utilities board in the spring, an interim increase of 2.5 per cent will go into effect on Jan. 1.

ATCO had initially pushed for a 1.6-per-cent rate decrease to begin last August — to account for higher-than-expected earnings — followed by a 6.8-per-cent increase from the resulting rate to start in 2024.

The utilities board ruled in favour of a simple interim rate increase in January to maintain stability for customers.

Intervenor hearings held last week allowed interested parties and members of the public to give testimony to the utilities board.

NDP MLA Lane Tredger was there for all four days, and still opposes the rate hike.

“Nothing I learned has changed our position on it,” they told the Star last Friday.

The NDP was the only Yukon political party that applied to be an intervenor.

Tredger has taken a public position in opposition to the rate increases several times since the rate application was announced last summer.

“We were the only political party that applied as intervenors, and I’m really proud that we were there to stand up for Yukoners,” they said.

The main sticking point for Tredger is the fact that ATCO made more money over the past seven years than it was supposed to under the previous rate application.

Under the terms of that application, the company’s profits were meant to be limited to nine per cent, but exceeded that every year between 2016 and 2022, earning about $1.5 million extra per year from 2017 on.

“ATCO has been over-earning by millions for seven years now,” Tredger said.

“So, after over-earning what they’re supposed to by millions, it does not make sense for them to get a rate increase.”

ATCO is an Alberta-based company, so Tredger said this money is also leaving the territory and not benefitting Yukoners.

In an email to the Star, ATCO Electric Yukon vice-president Jay Massie argued that looking back on rates and trying to adjust based on those would be “retroactive rate-making.

“It is not possible to go back and adjust past expenses or rates,” he said.

With a growing population and with more electric cars and other demands such as increased mining activity, Massie said, the utility needs more money to upgrade the territory’s electrical infrastructure.

“The current 2017 rates cannot support the current growth of the Yukon,” he wrote.

But Tredger said increased demand actually means the company is able to make more money — pointing to the over-earnings as evidence of this.

“(ATCO representatives) talked a lot about how the transition to electrification and green energy is actually making things harder for them,” Tredger said.

“I don’t really buy that argument. I think it’s more sales for them too, and they actually stand to benefit a lot from it.”

Tredger argues the company had plenty of extra money for infrastructure upgrades when it was making the extra profits.

“They had the opportunity to do a lot of that those infrastructure upgrades over the last seven years when they had extra money,” Tredger said.

“Now that their costs are going up, they suddenly want to do these improvements, and they want Yukoners to pay more to do them.”

ATCO is generally responsible in the Yukon for power delivery infrastructure such as poles and wires, while the Yukon Energy Corp. is responsible for power generation.

Though Yukon Energy is a public corporation, ATCO is a private utility. When ATCO makes more money than it is supposed to, Tredger said, there is no mechanism for it to give any of it back.

“As far as I understand it, there is no legal requirement that if they make more than they thought they were going to, or that they convinced the utility board they were going to, they just get to keep it and hand it to the shareholders,” Tredger said.

Massie said the company is putting money back into the system with infrastructure investment, including $50 million spent since 2017.

He said ATCO needs to continue to reinvest, with $30 million more in planned expenditures.