Huron Expositor, 2007-02-21, Page 2Page 2 February 21, 2007 • The Huron Expositor
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News
Festival Hydro plans
to install smart meters
Brian S h y p u l a
Festival Hydro plans to begin installing
smart meters in customers' homes later this
year, pending approval from the province.
The utility has applied to the Ministry of
Energy to be in the next round of smart
meters installed across Ontario and expects to
find out whether it will receive the go-ahead
sometime after May 1.
"We hope to start our deployment in 2007,"
said Bill Zehr, Festival Hydro president.
If approved, the meters would begin to be
installed in the final quarter of 2007.
The utility hasn't decided which customers
and communities will go first, Mr. Zehr said.
The plan is to spread the installation over
four years, doing roughly 25 'per cent of the
company's customers a year. The utility sup-
plies electricity to about 18,500 customers in
Stratford, St. Marys, Seaforth, Brussels,
Dashwood, Hensall and Zurich.
The provincial government's plan is to have
800,000 customers on smart meters by the
end of 2007 but has set 2010 as the target for
provincewide smart metering for residential
and smaller general service customers.
Smart meters monitor how much energy is
used and when, enabling utilities to charge
different rates at high -demand and off-peak
hours, and encouraging users to shift their
usage to cheaper times when there is surplus
capacity.
Festival Hydro has $500,000 budgeted for
smart meters in 2007.
The utility is asking the province to approve
a small rate hike to help with the purchase,
installation and maintenance of the meters.
For the typical household using 1,000 kWh
a month, the increase would add 46 cents to
their monthly bill.
At the same time, the utility has also asked
the Ontario Energy Board for a two-tenths of
a per cent decrease in the distribution rate
residential customers are charged, which
would amount to a 15 -cent savings a month
for the average user.
When the fee hike and distribution rate
decrease are offset, the net effect is a 31 -cent
increase in the average residential hydro bill
— or roughly one cent a day.
"It's a few pennies," Mr. Zehr said.
Festival Hydro is asking the board for writ-
ten hearings on the fee changes. People can
file objections to the charges with the board.
Research, explicit teaching
has helped improve literacy
From Page 1 To improve literacy among young boys, the
Black credits students, staff and parents school is using graphic novels, magazines and
with the improvement but says the key to comic books which are proven to engage boys.
turning around the scores was "being focussed We use them as tools - theyre an easy,
and collaborative." visual way for boys to buy into read -
SPS received three-year ing," she says, adding the school
provincial "Turnaround Team would be happy to accept dona-
Project" funding in 2004 to buy tions of comic books.
books and furniture to help with Black also says that the
literacy teaching. school's belief that every child
"That helped but it was not can learn is instrumental in the
the driving force," says Black. improvements in literacy.
She says teachers have also "Our job is to make a difference
created "professional learning and we will analyse our instruc-
tion to ensure that happens," she
`Our job is to
make -a differ-
ence and we
will analyse
our instruction
to ensure that
happens,' --
SPS principal
Kim Black
teams" that meet twice a month
to discuss research and teaching says.
skills.
"It's like a book club where we
assist each other in becoming
better teachers," she says
Using educational research
from books and journals, the staff
has worked at using explicit and skill -based
learning.
For example, while teaching reading, teach-
ers decide which skills students need to learn
to become good readers and teach those skills
explicitly.
Part of that explicit teaching includes
breaking down the skill into steps and show-
ing students what a "good answer" looks like
specifically.
As well, Black says teachers are paying
attention to research on boys and literacy,
which says boys traditionally don't do as well
at reading as girls do in the early years.
Family literacy nights, with
"awesome turnouts" by parents
have also shown the support the
school has had from the commu-
nity.
Black says SPS is now receiv-
ing enquiries from other schools about the
teaching strategies used to make the academ-
ic improvements at the school.
"Seaforth is truly a collaborative learning
environment," she says.
Clarification
In a story in last week's Huron Expositor
about youths charged with trespassing and
underage drinking, the Valentine's fundraiser
dance was held at the Agriplex, not the
Seaforth Community Centre.