Ruling means ATCO must double refund to customers after overcharging

An Alberta regulator has doubled the amount a provincial utility must refund to consumers after it attempted to overcharge them for costs it shouldn’t have incurred.

The Alberta Utilities Commission says ATCO Electric must refund up to $25 million instead of the $11 million the company had offered to pay.

The refunds are over costs that ATCO tried to recover from the construction of a power line through Jasper National Park.

The company illegally allowed a First Nations contractor to overcharge in the hopes it would bring revenue to another ATCO branch and then tried to hide the deal from regulators.

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The costs the commission says ATCO must refund include $250,000 the company spent on the coverup.

The refund is in addition to a $31-million fine levied on ATCO.

ATCO chairwoman Nancy Southern has apologized to shareholders for the wrongdoing.

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