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Energy provider offering discounts to High Country business owners

Foothills Energy Co-operative is offering wholesale energy rates to its business members for the next four months in hopes to provide financial relief during the tough economic times many are facing throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Foothills Energy Co-op
The original Foothills Energy Co-operative board of directors, clockwise from top left, Wanda Shewan, Angie Simmons, Graham Lettner, Larry Kapustka, Robert Smulders and Murray Knowler. The not-for-profit is offering local businesses a discount on their energy rates the next four months. (Wheel File Photo)

A fiscally challenging year for many businesses has prompted a local energy provider to offer merchants a much-needed break on their energy bills.

Foothills Energy Co-operative offers wholesale energy rates to its business members for the next four months in hopes to provide financial relief during the tough economic times many are facing throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, according to executive director Graham Lettner.

“With the board being from the Diamond Valley and area, everyone feels the sense that our local businesses, many of them, are up against a wall here,” said Lettner. “This was really borne out of, businesses were struggling for many months, what can be done? This is like a first expression of that.”

Participating business owners signed up for the not-for-profit co-op’s one-year fixed rate for electricity will pay $6.074 cents per kilowatt hour. Depending on the year they signed up, they were previously paying up to $6.89. Those on a floating rate will pay 0.67 cents less per kilowatt hour, Lettner said.

Those who signed up for natural gas will pay $2.98 per gigajoule, down from $3.49, while those on a floating rate will pay either 0.35 cents or 0.49 cents less, depending on the customer, he said.

“A business member might save between $4 and $75 per month, depending on usage,” he said, adding customers range from small home-based businesses to large store-front businesses.

The co-operative has more than 200 members across Alberta, most from Black Diamond and Turner Valley, said Lettner. Twenty-two are businesses.

“We’re just enrolling the first businesses in the program this week,” he said, adding 10 have signed on so far.

Lettner said the board of directors may choose to extend the program after the four months have passed.

Pat Lothrop, owner of Diamond Willow Bed and Breakfast west of Turner Valley, said the energy discount is a huge help to her business. She signed up with the co-operative more than a year ago.

When international travel closed down in March, Lothrop said she lost more than $10,000 worth of business with no customers from mid-March to May and only a few from June until business began to pick up in August.

Despite the loss in revenue, Lothrop said she still had to pay her energy costs.

“We have five guest rooms, a large studio, a living room and kitchen,” she said. “Just by the area in this house it is expensive to heat and there’s lot of west windows. It’s a big house, there’s lot of overhead and those bills don’t stop because our customers have stopped coming.”

Foothills Energy Co-op, formed in 2016 by a group of High Country residents to help businesses and homeowners save on their utility bills, market natural gas and electricity through Calgary supplier UtilityNet at a lower cost than many large corporations.

UtilityNet provides the electricity and natural gas and looks after the billing and servicing component while the board of directors is responsible for establishing customers. Revenue generated from sales goes into a community fund, which the board of directors oversees, to be spent on conservation and sustainability initiatives as decided and voted on by those paying for the service.

Among the projects the co-operative supported were the installation of solar panels on The Westwood restaurant in Black Diamond and funding a water conservation initiative at the Valley Neighbours Club in Turner Valley.

For more information about the Foothills Energy Co-op visit www.foothillsenergycoop.ca

Tammy Rollie, OkotoksToday.ca

For updated information, follow our COVID-19 special section for the latest local and national news on the coronavirus pandemic, as well as resources, FAQs and more.

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