Manitoba Hydro held their annual northern public accountability meeting in Flin Flon last night.  Their Vice-President of Customer Care and Energy Conservation Lloyd Kuczek says they are moving forward to meet the energy needs of the province with the load going up by about 1.5 percent each year.  He says their plans are all about meting that future need in a reliable and safe manner and at the lowest cost possible so part of the plan is to build Keeyask and they got approval to proceed with that and they also got approval to proceed with another inter-connection which improves the reliability and helps them keep rates lower in Manitoba by exporting surplus electricity to the states.

Kuczek adds they had a good year financially due largely to higher water flows but are still looking at an increase in rates of 4 percent per year going forward due to capital expenditures to meet future needs as well as having to upgrade their current system.