The carbon tax forced Prairie South School Division to pay an extra $100,000 in utility costs during the 2020-21 school year, even though it worked to make its buildings more energy efficient.
The federal government introduced the carbon tax on April 1, 2019, and set the rate at $20 per tonne. That rate will hit $50 per tonne next year and $170 per tonne by 2030. This will further raise the cost of gasoline, natural gas, home heating and other goods dependent on fossil fuels.
Darren Baiton, buildings manager with the division, presented a buildings accountability report about the 2020-21 school year during the board of education’s December meeting. Among other things, his report looked at the division’s costs for electricity and natural gas.
Electricity
The buildings department continued to upgrade the lighting in most schools to light emitting diodes (LEDs), which will give the division better energy payback on those more efficient lights, said Baiton.
However, hidden in the total electrical costs was an increase of $50,000 because of the carbon tax, even though the division’s consumption level declined, he added.
Total electrical consumption in Prairie South decreased from roughly 1.2 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2017-18 to about 560,000 kWh in 2019-20 and then increased to 600,000 kWh in 2020-21, Baiton’s report said.
Consumption levels spiked briefly in 2017-18 to nearly 1.2 million kWh since the division was upgrading A.E. Peacock Collegiate and power was running 24/7.
Meanwhile, total electricity costs for PSSD decreased from roughly $1.17 million in 2017-18 to almost $1 million during the 2020-21 year.
The average electricity consumption per day in the division was 489 kWh. A.E. Peacock had the highest consumption at around 2,100 kWh, while John Chisholm Alternative School had the lowest consumption per day for schools at around 90 kWh.
Natural gas
Prairie South consumed around 2.2 million cubic metres of natural gas during the 2017-18 year, before falling to around 1.9 million cubic metres in 2019-20 and then rising to roughly 2 million cubic metres in 2020-21, the report said.
Meanwhile, the cost of natural gas has steadily risen during the past four years. In 2017-18 costs were around $440,000, while that number rose to around $590,000 in 2020-21.
The average natural gas consumption per day in the division was 156 cubic metres. Peacock had the highest consumption at around 580 cubic metres, while John Chisholm Alternate School had the lowest at around 30 cubic metres.
The division is on a five-year contract for natural gas, which means total consumption has held the line while costs have steadily increased, said Baiton.
“Division-wide, we’re approximately a $100,000 increase due to (the) carbon tax,” he added.
Baiton later added that Peacock has twice the amount of utility consumption as other schools because the building is three blocks long, has more square footage and is twice as big as other buildings.
Trustee concerns
Trustee Robert Bachmann told the board that these increased costs are a concern, especially when the division is making efforts to be more energy efficient and not seeing a financial return on investment.
The federal government is supposed to provide money through the Climate Action Incentive Fund (CAIF), but neither it nor the provincial government can agree on how to distribute that funding, he continued. This means the division can’t spend money it doesn’t have even though it’s being asked to do more with less.
“That is a major concern for us, that our funding is not keeping up with our expenses even though we’re much more efficient than we have been,” he added. “So … what more can we do?”
The next PSSD board meeting is Tuesday, Jan. 11.
