Why your bill went up even though you used less electricity

This is one of the most common and most frustrating Ontario electricity questions.

Plain-language summary: Some parts of your bill don’t fall proportionally with usage. When usage drops, fixed charges (and non-linear charges) can become a bigger share of the total.

Top causes

Fixed delivery components: if your usage drops, fixed delivery doesn’t drop much.
Billing period length: a bill with more days can be higher even with lower daily usage.
Rate period shifts: TOU periods or tier thresholds can change what your kWh costs.
System cost recovery: items like GA may not track your kWh in the way you expect.

What to do next

Compare the number of billing days and total kWh (not just the dollar total).
Check whether your usage shifted into higher-price periods (if on TOU).
Look at delivery and GA as a share of the bill (they often explain the “disconnect”).