This week SaskPower announced that they will be seeking a 4.9 per cent rate increase that would be effective at the beginning of next year if approved. Rural residential, farm, and commercial customers will be hit the hardest with the proposed increases, while all customers across the province will see some level of increase.In yesterday’s news release SaskPower noted, “The increase is needed to fund investments in the province’s electrical system to keep up with our growing economy and maintain electrical reliability.” The people of Saskatchewan should be asking themse...

With the current government selling off bits and pieces of our power industry to out-of-province power companies, today we take a few minutes to look into Saskatchewan’s future power industry. Power Purchase Agreements (PPA’s), in their simplest terms, are contracts with private power companies to supply power to the Saskatchewan grid. Many PPA’s are signed for ‘peak load’ power, which means that when Saskatchewan is using a high amount of power, SaskPower can purchase excess from these providers. In some cases, our government is actually signing agreements are fo...

News ReleaseFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEMarch 2, 2012Government privatizes more Saskatchewan powerThe Brad Wall government announced Wednesday that an additional seven percent of Saskatchewan’s power is being privatized – reaching an alarming total of nearly 17 per cent by the end of 2016. SaskPower announced another Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Windlectric Inc. which is a subsidiary of Ontario-based Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp (Algonquin).The new $355-million wind project will be located near Chaplin, Saskatchewan and will be fully operational by the end of 2016. Algonqui...