Hydro One's $160 million interest free loan to Ratepayers

Hydro One's (HONI) 1.2 million customers either have or will shortly receive a form letter from them that highlights an interest free loan HONI will provide for the next 6 months. In total the loans that Hydro One will make are approximately $160 million (based on the 2011 Hydro One filings with the Ontario Energy Board).

Unfortunately each ratepayer will be required to repay that loan in 6 months. Now to make it clear; those ratepayers didn't ask for the $134.00 (average) interest free loan but the benevolent parties that run Hydro One decided to provide it to their distribution customers rather then surprise them with a bill that would have been tougher to explain. What Hydro One have done is to state in the letter that they have developed a new billing system that will allow them to bill their customers 18 days earlier then in the past or as they put it;

“Today on average, there’s a delay of up to 18 days between when you use electricity and when we issue your bill.”

In their strange logic Hydro One are saying because we were inept in the past we will prove that we are now capable of issuing your bill 18 days sooner - but we won't! Instead we will bill you for the 18 days and provide you with an interest free loan for 6 months to recover that money because we have finally got a billing system that allows us to do that.
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