Large electricity customers in Ontario could have a new option for reducing the peak demand factors that determine their share of the bucket of electricity system costs known as the global adjustment.

Newly announced plans to test and compare approaches for dynamic electricity pricing should be seen as very early notification for Ontario's small and mid-sized commercial customers.

Cost allocation factors for enrollees in Ontario's Industrial Conservation Initiative have been based on energy use in pre-pandemic July 2019. That will be updated for a new 12-month billing period beginning July 1.

Ontario’s large commercial customers will have somewhat more straightforward parameters for carving out their share of the global adjustment as they prepare for expected summer peak demand.

After a year of operational upheaval and more modifications to electricity pricing policies, BOMA Toronto’s annual workshop to address the complexities of the global adjustment had a lot of ground to cover.

For now, residential and small business customers enrolled for either time-of-use (TOU) rates or tiered pricing under the provincial regulated price plan will be charged the off-peak TOU rate of 8.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for all electricity consumption.

For Class A consumers, cost-saving potential will be diminished even if they successfully curtail demand during the five peak hours since those peaks are expected to be lower than usual.

Commercial and industrial electricity customers will pay the differential above 11.5 cents per kilowatt-hour in added monthly increments beginning in January 2021.

Despite a steep drop in province-wide energy consumption due to COVID-19 triggered business shutdowns, many building owners/managers expect a more modest flow-through dip in operating costs.

Industry insiders speaking at the Energy Storage Canada conference in Toronto celebrated technological advances, but stressed that viable, steady revenue will be needed to propel the technology into the mainstream.