As it does every summer, Hydro Quebec is asking the provincial energy board to approve a rate hike for residential and business customers.

The crown corporation is asking for a 0.8 percent rate hike as of April 1, 2019 -- pointing out that the predicted rate of inflation is 1.8 percent, so that the cost of power will not increase as much as the price for other essential items.

According to Hydro Quebec, that will amount to about 23 cents per month for an apartment, and $1.60 for a middle-sized house.

Hydro Quebec is also trying to get people to use less electricity at peak hours, so it's coming up with different pay scales for customers who are willing to change their habits.

Eric Filion, president of Hydro Quebec distribution, said customers who choose to can pay less for electricity if they are willing to drastically cut back during heat waves and cold snaps.

"The first one, the credit option, the customer can join this program or leave it anytime. They always have the regular, residential tariff applied, but during those 100 hours where we call upon them because we have a peak demand, if they lower their consumption there's going to be a 50 cents per kWh credit to the customer on their bill. The other option is that during the whole winter, we're talking about 97 percent of the time, they will benefit from a lower tariff than the regular tariff, but during those hundred hours where we have high demand on our grid they will need to pay 50 cents per kWh," said Filion.

The lower tariff under the second option, the critical peak option, would see the price of electricity drop by about 2 cents per kWh.

Hydro Quebec is also proposing, for the second time is as many years, an increase in the amount of electricity people can use each day at its cheapest rate.

Currently most home customers can use up to 36 kWh per day at a price of 5.91 cents per kWh. It's now asking to increase that amount to 40 kWh per day.

The Crown corporation came under fire last year from opposition party Coalition Avenir Quebec, which said that Hydro Quebec had collected an extra $1.4 billion between 2008 and 2015.

However since it is a fully-owned crown corporation, any profits made by Hydro Quebec go into the the coffers of the provincial government, and those earnings were used to balance the provincial budget.

Since 2015 the annual increases in the cost of electricity have been limited to about one-third of what Hydro-Quebec was asking for: 0.7 percent in 2015, 2016, and 2017.

Last year the provincial utility asked for a 0.7 percent rate hike, but was only given permission to increase the cost for electricity by 0.3 percent.