How to find the rate on your bill

• You have a contract for each location where electricity is supplied.
• There is a rate for each contract.
• The rate is shown on the detailed statement of each bill.

Why are there different rates?

In order to ensure equity for all, Hydro-Québec groups together customers with similar consumption characteristics. This allows same-rate billing for customers who engender similar costs for the use of our power system and the supply of services.

Hydro-Québec applies separate rates to its business (general use) and residential (domestic use) customers.

Business customer rates

Rates for general use apply to businesses, institutions and industrial customers. The electricity consumption of these customers varies according to their activities.

The system costs engendered by these customers depend on three factors: supply voltage, consumption habits (e.g., summer vs winter operations) and the equipment required to supply electricity.

The rates for general use include two price components. First, the "demand charge" covers the distributor's portion of the equipment costs and is billed by the kilowatt. Second, the "energy charge" covers the operating costs, or the cost of producing the power, and is billed by the kilowatthour.

Finally, there are business customers who use a higher voltage than that used by residential customers. Since this reduces Hydro-Québec's transformation costs, these customers are granted a discount.

The three basic rates for business customers are as follows:

• Rate G – Minimum billing demand less than 100 kW
• Rate M – Minimum billing demand 100 kW or more, but less than 5,000 kW
• Rate L – Minimum billing demand 5,000 kW or more

Rate options to meet specific needs

Power consumption varies greatly from one customer to another (high or low load factor, consumption period, use of a particular technology, etc.) A base rate cannot reflect all these variables, which is why Hydro-Québec offers rate options such as Rate G-9 (low load factor) and Rate H (utilization of power mainly outside winter weekdays).

Residential customers rates

Domestic rates apply only to electricity used in a dwelling. Rate D is the one that applies to most of our residential customers (one meter per customer). Rate DM is used for apartment buildings and community residences, where a single meter is used for everyone (bulk metering). Rate DT is for dual-energy systems.

For simplicity, the bill only specifies the kilowatthours consumed (energy charge).

Domestic rates consist of a fixed charge plus two price tiers for energy consumption.

The main rates for residential customers are as follows:

• Rate D for domestic use with individual meters (separate metering)
• Rate DM for domestic use with shared meters (bulk metering)
• Rate DT for domestic use with dual-energy systems