So-called “energy poverty” is getting worse in rural Ontario, a Global News investigation has found, with even small households paying hundreds of dollars a month to keep the lights on.

Officials, residents and experts are all sounding the alarm after electricity rates in the province rose 100 per cent in the past decade.

A range of factors are fueling the increases, including subsidies for clean energy, dealing with aging nuclear plants and maintaining and modernizing the province’s vast transmission and distribution system. But the problem is especially acute in rural Ontario, where steep delivery charges are the norm.

Rural Ontarians left in the dark as electricity bills skyrocket