Read this editorial from Vaughn Palmer in the Vancouver Sun discussing BC Hydro’s use of “regulatory accounts” to put off payment for years on major expenditures, like the billion-dollar “smart” meter program, which we won’t start paying for until 2015, through even higher electrical bills.

“The B.C. Liberals have quietly allowed a massive increase in deferred
costs at BC Hydro, creating a multibillion-dollar shortfall that will
have to be repaid out of future rate increases or an injection of cash
from provincial taxpayers. So suggests one of the less-widely
publicized findings by the three senior public servants appointed by the
B.C. Liberals to review the upward pressures on electricity rates. The
review panel report, released last week, documents the “significant
growth” in cost deferrals at Hydro, from less than half a billion
dollars in 2007 to $2 billion today and a projected $4.7 billion in
2014.” (August 18, 2011)