WATERLOO REGION — Brace yourself for a 15 per cent hike in your electric bill.

It’s a one-two punch that started in May, when the price of power went up between six and seven per cent. Part of the reason for that, hydro officials say, is the high cost of explaining to consumers how to cut back on power usage.

And now, bills are beginning to show the second part of the hike, when the harmonized sales tax gets applied to hydro bills and adds another eight per cent increase.

“Yes, we have had feedback from customers. They are not pleased,” said Barb Shortreed, director of customer care at Cambridge and North Dumfries Hydro.

One Kitchener couple will move out of their home before their sky-high hydro bills can get any worse.

In wintertime, Ryan Alischer and Steph Garibaldi paid $900 every two months on their electrically heated, older home. In summer, the bills would be less, but even so, the couple figure that they were paying $300 on average throughout the year.

With those costs, “we couldn’t save money for a down payment on our mortgage,” said Garibaldi.

They are moving out and living with Alischer’s parents for a couple of months before moving into a newer home this October that they hope is more energy-efficient.

Alischer doesn’t see any point in protesting the hydro hike.

“What can you do?” he says. “You’re at their mercy.”

Another hydro customer, Mahesh Modi of Kitchener, said he doesn’t like the 15 per cent hike in his bill. He works in the automotive sector and he’s pretty sure his salary isn’t going up by 15 per cent.

“It’s a little bit tough,” he says, but there’s nothing he can do.

If he doesn’t pay, he’ll be cut off.

“What am I supposed to do without hydro?” he said.

Shortreed of the Cambridge hydro utility said customers need to be educated on how to use less power, and manage their costs. The expenses involved in the education campaign is part of the reason the rate hike was approved, she said.

“You and I can make choices to reduce waste and not use power.”

For example, an electrical appliance that’s turned off, but still plugged in — like a TV or a stereo — can cost $10 a month in “phantom power” that keeps the appliance ready for use. Unplugging appliances will save money, she said. Another idea is to use a clothesline to dry laundry instead of your dryer, which uses a lot of power.

Meanwhile, the government is getting ready for “smart meters,” which charge less for electricity if you use it at night and on weekends, when demand is lower.

These will be used by all home customers across the province by the end of 2011, she said.

But some customers in other communities, who are already trying out the smart meters, are finding out that they aren’t saving as much as they had expected, she said.

ldamato@therecord.com