Power rates jump in December

The average Edmonton homeowner can expect to pay an extra $25 on their December electricity bill.

Residential rates are increasing to 13.3 cents per kilowatt-hour in December, an increase of 4 cents over the November rate.

"There are a couple of plants that have gone off-line unexpectedly," said Geoff Scotton from the Alberta Utilities Commission.  "The other is demand is little higher than expected and part of that is that temperatures have been a little colder."

Jim Wachowich from the Consumers' Coalition of Alberta says despite the volatility, people should still avoid contracts that lock in a price.

"I wouldn't panic because just as all these prices have gone up before, gas or electricity, they've come down, for unexpected and unexplained reasons," he said.

"There are many examples in the past, a decade or so of people who've bought into a fixed-term, fixed-price contract at a very high price and suffered the consequences when the regulated retail price later dropped off again."

Wachowich has long been a critic of Alberta's deregulated electricity market.