Those of you who pay hydro bills in Ontario might consider sitting in the dark from now on with all your appliances off, as you’re going to see some rather significant increases to your Hydro One bill.

If you’ve received your hydro bill in the last couple of weeks, you already know the bad news, which was conveniently included in a foldout pamphlet with your bill.

For one, delivery rates have increased. Hydro One says that will mean a $4.44 monthly increase, or four per cent of the total bill, in delivery charges for the average household user. Delivery rates are scheduled to increase again in 2011.

But that’s not all. Thanks to Dalton McGuinty’s HST, hydro customers will pay a 13 per cent HST charge on their bills instead of the old five per cent GST.

And as of May 1, 2010, electricity prices increased, adding another approximately eight per cent to your total hydro bill.

Hydro One is also implementing "Time-of-Use" pricing, which will see different rates charged at different times of the day. Lowest, or "off-peak" times are generally at night after 9 p.m. into the morning. If you play your cards right and save household chores like laundry and running the dishwasher until off-peak times, you could realize some savings.

But let’s face it — most households already do those chores at nighttime and it’s debatable whether "Time-of-Use" pricing will do anything other than confuse hydro users.

There is also a "Special Purpose Charge" of about $4 a year which will, according to Hydro One, "Pay for conservation and renewable energy programs."

Of course, there are the usual pieces of advice on how to save energy, such as buying a programmable thermostat and reducing the air conditioning or heat while you’re sleeping or not at home. But with conservation and the environment being such a hot button issue for the past few years, most of us have already reduced our heat and air conditioning use about as much as we’re comfortable with. And we’ve all installed those energy-efficient lights that don’t last as long as they’re supposed to.

All in all, not very good news in a slowly recovering economy in which many people are having a tough time paying the bills.

So you can sit in the dark, do your laundry at night and use your furnace a bit less, but the bottom line is if you live in this province you’re probably going to have to grin and bear it — your hydro bill is going up, and there’s not much you can do about it.