Some information on Hydro and why the rates are MUCH lower for a company that would use a very large amount of electricity...

First, to power 300,000 homes, it would take an absolutely enormous amount of infrastructure to supply power to this amount of homes. First, you have to have a 115,000 - 450,000 volt transmission line to bring power into the area/areas to supply power to large say 10 - 20 mw (megawatt or million watts) step down transformers. To supply 300,000 homes and due to distance, you would likely require 1 station transformer to power approx. 5 - 10 thousand homes. These numbers are based on the station transformers in Winnipeg, Manitoba where Court station has 10 (I am making an educated guess as I have not worked in Court station in approx. 7 years) feeders of approximately 600 - 800 customer on each feeder and Southwood station where it has 6 feeders that have an average of about 300 - 400 customers/feeder (older station). Each station would require switch gear for the transmission line, all the wiring to bring the power into two 10 - 40 mva station transformers (2 for back up in case 1 fails as it takes weeks to replace one of these and people can't be out of power for weeks), Distribution switchgear and automatic recloser devices so power does not stay off in a lightning strike or if a rodent gets into or onto a transformer and shorts out the power and miles and miles of lines in the 4800 - 14,400 volt (single phase which is the residential voltage in Manitoba) and a plethora of transformers to feed anywhere from 1 to about 16 (average amount of homes based on distance in Winnipeg) per transformer. Then you need lines out of the transformers to the homes into metering devices and meters for each home to record the usage.

Sorry for the long explanation but there is a LOT of infrastructure required for powering homes which needs to be maintained, controlled and monitored to ensure loading does not go over the maximums that the equipment can handle, billing, collections and a host of other things that make up a power company's day to day business... On top of that, Manitoba's underground high voltage Distribution lines are rated to last 35 - 40 years. This means that you need to replace these lines in 30 - 50 years based on what kind of conditions they are installed in and how much amperage goes through each line. Amperage creates heat and heat is what destroyes lines and equipment.

Now, a smelter like the one that would smelt chromite would require the same transmission line and switch gear as the homes would but that is where the similarities may end. In Manitoba, when you have power over 50 mva, the transformation equipment normally is built by the customer. This is done for a number of reasons and the customers can run their own maintenance schedules (which are usually further apart than a power company's schedule) and keep everything in-house to reduce costs. This means that building a step down from Transmission voltage to a usable voltage supply source can be incurred once by the company and last a long time with the appropriate amount of maintenance done... 

The difference in cost is mind boggling to me. I know what it costs to install a high voltage line to a transformer that outputs household voltage and then bring the power to the metering device costs as I did the pricing in Manitoba Hydro for this level of power to new homes... This is why the cost of energy to these types of companies looks so cheap. There is sooooo much less that needs to be looked after, never mind constructed to begin with.

I hope that this helps everyone to understand a little bit about how the electric grid works and the amount of time and effort that is required to build and/or maintain it. Rates are fair if you know why... Just my 2 cents worth.

Herb