Lower Prices, a Smaller Rebate and a Wider Winter Tier: What Changes on Your Bill
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The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) announced on Friday, October 16, that electricity prices for households, small businesses and farms change on November 1, along with the switch to winter Time-of-Use hours and a higher winter threshold for Tiered pricing. On the same date, the province's Ontario Electricity Rebate (OER), the credit near the bottom of most residential bills, changes to 15.7%. For a typical household using 700 kilowatt-hours (kWh) a month, the OEB estimates the rebate will lower the bill by about $23.
That $23 is a reduction, not a new benefit. Last November the rebate was set at 23.5%, worth about $36 a month on the same 700 kWh. Regulated electricity prices are falling about 7% this year, and the OEB says that decline is what allows the rebate to shrink. The net result: in the OEB's words, the overall rate of increase for customer bills "will remain consistent with previous years."
This piece walks through what changes on November 1, why the rebate is moving, how it scales with your usage, and how to judge whether Tiered, Time-of-Use or Ultra-Low Overnight pricing fits your winter consumption. The answer turns on two numbers only you have: how much electricity you use, and when you use it.
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The OEB sets Regulated Price Plan (RPP) prices once a year for customers who buy electricity from their utility rather than from a retailer. Customers choose among three RPP plans: Time-of-Use (TOU), where the price depends on the hour; Ultra-Low Overnight (ULO), a TOU variant with a very cheap overnight window and a very expensive weekday evening; and Tiered, where the price depends on how much you use in a month. Every RPP price is lower than last winter's, according to the OEB's October 16 announcement, most of them by about 7%.
Prices are in cents per kWh. Winter TOU hours and the residential Tier 1 threshold apply from November 1 to April 30; ULO hours are the same all year.
The Tier 1 threshold for residential customers rises from the summer's 600 kWh to 1,000 kWh a month, giving households an extra 400 kWh at the lower price through the heating season. The non-residential threshold stays at 750 kWh year-round.
For how the hours flip back in spring, see our coverage of the switch to summer Time-of-Use rates on May 1.
The OEB sets Regulated Price Plan (RPP) prices once a year for customers who buy electricity from their utility rather than from a retailer. Customers choose among three RPP plans: Time-of-Use (TOU), where the price depends on the hour; Ultra-Low Overnight (ULO), a TOU variant with a very cheap overnight window and a very expensive weekday evening; and Tiered, where the price depends on how much you use in a month. Every RPP price is lower than last winter's, according to the OEB's October 16 announcement, most of them by about 7%.
Prices are in cents per kWh. Winter TOU hours and the residential Tier 1 threshold apply from November 1 to April 30; ULO hours are the same all year.
The Tier 1 threshold for residential customers rises from the summer's 600 kWh to 1,000 kWh a month, giving households an extra 400 kWh at the lower price through the heating season. The non-residential threshold stays at 750 kWh year-round.
For how the hours flip back in spring, see our coverage of the switch to summer Time-of-Use rates on May 1.
The OER is a provincial credit rather than an OEB price, but the two move together. The OEB's Regulated Price Plan Price Report puts the average cost of supplying RPP customers over the next 12 months at $118.88 per megawatt-hour (11.89 cents per kWh), down 7% from $127.91 last year. Most of that decline comes from clearing past balances, chiefly a projected $205 million surplus in the Independent Electricity System Operator's variance account being returned to RPP customers over the year. Higher costs for regulated nuclear and hydroelectric generation and for gas-fired power partly offset it.
In other words, much of this year's price cut reflects money coming back from earlier years, while some underlying generation costs went up. The province is using that room to scale back the rebate.
For a household using 700 kWh a month, the arithmetic from the OEB's own figures runs like this:
These are estimates, not a bill. Delivery charges vary by utility and change on their own schedules. The direction, though, matches the OEB's statement that bills will keep rising at about the same pace as in past years.
The OER is a provincial credit rather than an OEB price, but the two move together. The OEB's Regulated Price Plan Price Report puts the average cost of supplying RPP customers over the next 12 months at $118.88 per megawatt-hour (11.89 cents per kWh), down 7% from $127.91 last year. Most of that decline comes from clearing past balances, chiefly a projected $205 million surplus in the Independent Electricity System Operator's variance account being returned to RPP customers over the year. Higher costs for regulated nuclear and hydroelectric generation and for gas-fired power partly offset it.
In other words, much of this year's price cut reflects money coming back from earlier years, while some underlying generation costs went up. The province is using that room to scale back the rebate.
For a household using 700 kWh a month, the arithmetic from the OEB's own figures runs like this:
These are estimates, not a bill. Delivery charges vary by utility and change on their own schedules. The direction, though, matches the OEB's statement that bills will keep rising at about the same pace as in past years.
Many utility and government web pages still list the 23.5% rebate. The 15.7% rate applies to electricity used from November 1, 2026.
Gas bills move on their own schedule; our explainer on what the October gas rate adjustment changes on an Ontario bill covers that side of a winter heating budget.
The OER is calculated on the subtotal of your bill before HST and appears as a pre-tax credit. It is automatic for most eligible customers, including households, farms, long-term care homes and small businesses, according to the Ontario government's energy-costs page, so there is nothing to apply for.
Because it is a percentage, the rebate grows as your bill grows. A home running electric baseboards or a heat pump at two or three times the typical 700 kWh will see a larger dollar rebate than the $23 headline. It will not be two or three times larger. Some delivery charges are fixed, the same no matter how much electricity you use, so higher consumption raises only the variable part of the subtotal the rebate is calculated on.
The same math works in reverse on this year's cut. The larger your bill, the more dollars a 7.8-point drop in the rebate rate removes, and the more it matters whether your plan suits how you actually use power.
If you're looking to cut consumption itself rather than reshuffle it, our guide to Ontario's Home Renovation Savings Program covers eligibility and how to apply.
All three plans are designed to recover the same average cost for a typical 700 kWh household, and the OEB is explicit that switching plans comes with no guarantee of savings. What changes is who comes out ahead. Tiered charges the same price at any hour up to the threshold. TOU and ULO reward moving use into cheaper hours. In setting this year's prices, the OEB assumed a typical TOU household uses about 64% of its electricity off-peak, 18% mid-peak and 18% on-peak.
At that profile, the Electricity line compares like this:
Figures cover the Electricity line only, before delivery and regulatory charges (the same on every plan) and before the rebate and HST (which scale with the Electricity line). Your own split between peak and off-peak hours will move these numbers.
The crossover sits near 1,490 kWh a month at that profile. Below it, the wider winter tier makes Tiered the cheaper option for a household with typical timing. Above it, TOU's 9.1-cent off-peak hours start to outweigh Tiered's 13.2-cent second tier. That matters for electrically heated homes. A house using two or three times the typical 700 kWh often lands near or above the crossover, so the higher threshold helps it less than it might appear, unless a large share of its heating load falls in daytime and early-evening peak hours.
ULO has the widest spread of any plan: 3.7 cents overnight against 37.7 cents from 4 to 9 p.m. on weekdays, a gap of more than ten to one, with an on-peak price roughly double TOU's. The OEB's assumed ULO household, using 41% of its electricity overnight and 13% on-peak, averages about 12 cents per kWh at the new prices, slightly more than the typical TOU household. ULO pays when you can push more than that into the overnight window (EV charging, laundry, dishwasher runs and water-heater recovery after 11 p.m.) and keep weekday evenings light. On ULO, a 5 p.m. dryer load costs about ten times what the same load would after 11 p.m., and about twice what it would at 5 p.m. on TOU.
All three plan prices already include an estimate of the Global Adjustment, the charge that covers the gap between what generators are guaranteed and what they earn in the wholesale market.
For the unusual month that charge worked in customers' favour, see our report on the Global Adjustment turning negative for the first time in 19 years.
All three plans are designed to recover the same average cost for a typical 700 kWh household, and the OEB is explicit that switching plans comes with no guarantee of savings. What changes is who comes out ahead. Tiered charges the same price at any hour up to the threshold. TOU and ULO reward moving use into cheaper hours. In setting this year's prices, the OEB assumed a typical TOU household uses about 64% of its electricity off-peak, 18% mid-peak and 18% on-peak.
At that profile, the Electricity line compares like this:
Figures cover the Electricity line only, before delivery and regulatory charges (the same on every plan) and before the rebate and HST (which scale with the Electricity line). Your own split between peak and off-peak hours will move these numbers.
The crossover sits near 1,490 kWh a month at that profile. Below it, the wider winter tier makes Tiered the cheaper option for a household with typical timing. Above it, TOU's 9.1-cent off-peak hours start to outweigh Tiered's 13.2-cent second tier. That matters for electrically heated homes. A house using two or three times the typical 700 kWh often lands near or above the crossover, so the higher threshold helps it less than it might appear, unless a large share of its heating load falls in daytime and early-evening peak hours.
ULO has the widest spread of any plan: 3.7 cents overnight against 37.7 cents from 4 to 9 p.m. on weekdays, a gap of more than ten to one, with an on-peak price roughly double TOU's. The OEB's assumed ULO household, using 41% of its electricity overnight and 13% on-peak, averages about 12 cents per kWh at the new prices, slightly more than the typical TOU household. ULO pays when you can push more than that into the overnight window (EV charging, laundry, dishwasher runs and water-heater recovery after 11 p.m.) and keep weekday evenings light. On ULO, a 5 p.m. dryer load costs about ten times what the same load would after 11 p.m., and about twice what it would at 5 p.m. on TOU.
All three plan prices already include an estimate of the Global Adjustment, the charge that covers the gap between what generators are guaranteed and what they earn in the wholesale market.
For the unusual month that charge worked in customers' favour, see our report on the Global Adjustment turning negative for the first time in 19 years.
The provincial average is a poor guide to your own bill. A better starting point is the household's own record:
Compare using your own winter months, not the 700 kWh average. A home that runs well above 1,000 kWh in January can land on the other side of the Tiered/TOU crossover from the same home in November.
From November 15, 2026 to April 30, 2027, electricity distributors cannot disconnect residential customers for non-payment. The OEB's rules for electricity utilities also require occupied homes already disconnected for non-payment to be reconnected by December 1 at no charge.
The ban is protection, not debt relief. Utilities may keep charging late-payment fees on past-due amounts, and customers still in arrears can face disconnection once the ban lifts at the end of April. If the smaller rebate pushes a household behind, two programs exist for exactly that: the Ontario Electricity Support Program provides a monthly on-bill credit for qualifying low-income households, and the Low-income Energy Assistance Program offers a one-time emergency grant to customers who are behind and at risk of disconnection.
For the other half of many Ontario heating bills, see our coverage of the OEB's natural gas rate decrease that took effect April 1.
November's bill carries three changes at once: lower prices, a smaller rebate and a wider winter tier. For a typical household, the rebate cut is the biggest of the three. The plan choice is the only one you control.
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About the Author
Ryan is the founder of Homeowner.ca and a proud Canadian homeowner based in Guelph, Ontario. Over his 25-year career in digital publishing, he has focused on transforming complex information into clear, practical guidance that helps people make confident, well-informed decisions.
