Hydro Ottawa Ontario's Electricity Distribution Sector

Hydro Ottawa > Ontario’s Electricity distribution Sector

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Ontario’s local distribution companies (LDCs) take power from the high-voltage transmission grid, reduce the electricity voltage to a lower level (50,000 volts and under), and provide this electricity to customers — homes, businesses, institutions (such as hospitals and schools) and industry. They also provide energy conservation services to their customers, as a condition of their distribution licenses issued by their regulator, the Ontario Energy Board.

The Role of the Local Distribution Company

The functions carried out by Ontario’s LDCs include the following:

>> Plan — Review performance and trending, project consumer demand growth, develop capital and maintenance plans;

>> Design — Apply standards and rigor to projects >> Meter — Measure the customer’s consumption; and retrofits and execute plan; >> Bill — Obtain all the usage information and send the >> Build — Bring the conceptual design to construction; bill to the customer;

>> Operate — 24/7 operations; >> Collect — Manage payment collection;

>> Maintain — Manage physical assets; >> Conserve — Promote conservation and demand management programs; and >> Restore — Outage management, customer communications; >> Customer Care — Manage the relationship with customers. Hydro Ottawa > Backgrounder

Location of Ontario’s LDCs

Espanola Regional Hydro North Bay Hydro West Nipissing Energy Ottawa River Power Hydro Hawkesbury

Hydro 2000

Renfrew Hydro Cooperative Hydro Embrun

Hydro Ottawa Lakeland Power Distribution Cornwall Electric Parry Sound Power (Fortis)

Rideau St. Lawrence Distribution Gravenhurst Hydro Electric

Midland Power Eastern Ontario Power (Fortis) Orillia Power Distribution Tay Hydro Electric Distribution Kingston Electricity Distribution Veridian Connections Wasaga Distribution Peterborough Distribution Collus Power Veridian Connections

Barrie Hydro Scugog Hydro Lakefront Utilities Orangeville HydroInnisﬁl Hydro Newmarket Hydro Westario Power Aurora Hydro PowerStream PowerStream Veridian Connections Wellington North Power Hydro One Oshawa PUC Whitby Hydro Grand Valley Energy Brampton Veridian Connections Halton Hills Hydro Toronto Hydro West Coast Huron Energy Centre Wellington Hydro Milton Hydro Wellington Electric Distribution Waterloo North Hydro Enersource Hydro Clinton Power Guelph Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro Hydro Oakville Hydro Cambridge and North Dumfries Hydro Hamilton Hydro (Horizon)St. Catharines Hydro (Horizon) West Perth Power BurlingtonGrimsby PeninsulaHydro Power West Utilities Festival Hydro Niagara-on-the-Lake Hydro Brant County Power Niagara Falls Hydro Northern Ontario Inset Woodstock Hydro London Hydro Brantford Power Erie Thames Canadian Niagara Power Sioux-Lookout Hydro Bluewater Power Powerlines Port Colborne Hydro Kenora HE Middlesex Power Welland Hydro Haldimand County Hydro Hearst Power Distributon St. Thomas Energy Tillsonburg Hydro Norfolk Power Northern Ontario Wires Fort Frances Power Newbury Power Dutton Hydro Atikokan Hydro Terrace Bay Superior Wires Thunder Bay Hydro

Chapleau Public Utilities Chatham-Kent Energy Great Lakes Power EnWin Powerlines Essex Powerlines Greater Sudbury Utilities E.L.K. Energy PUC Distribution North Bay Hydro Espanola RegionalWest Hydro Nipissing Energy

Key Facts About Ontario LDCs Most electricity distribution companies serve urban customers and are municipally owned. Toronto Hydro There are 76 LDCs in Ontario (September 2012) serving (709,000 customers), Powerstream (335,000 customers) more than 4.5 million bill-paying customers. More than and Hydro Ottawa (305,000 customers) are the largest 4 million of these are residential customers, and the other municipally-owned distribution companies in Ontario. 500,000 are commercial and institutional customers.

Ontario’s electricity distribution companies have total assets of about $14 billion and annual revenues of about $3 billion.

Hydro One Networks is the province’s largest electricity distributor with 1.3 million customers and 123,000 km of wires. Owned by the Province of Ontario, it primarily serves the rural parts of the province as well as the city of Brampton, Ontario.

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Distribution Rates

LDCs are responsible for billing customers for their use of electricity, even though they keep only a percentage of the total electricity bill for the distribution services they provide. Hydro Ottawa, for example, keeps only about 20 percent of the total bill payment, with the other 80 percent flowing back to electricity generators, to Hydro One for transmission, to other entities for regulatory charges, to the provincial government to pay down the debt of the former Ontario Hydro, and to pay the harmonized sales tax.

Distribution rates are set following a public hearing before the Ontario Energy Board. Public hearings for each of the distribution companies are usually held annually.

For more information on rates, see the Backgrounder on Hydro Ottawa Electricity Rates.

Sources: Websites of Ontario Ministry of Energy, Electricity Distributors Association Contact Us

Hydro Ottawa 3025 Albion Road North P.O. Box 8700 Ottawa, Ontario K1G 3S4

Customer Service >> www.hydroottawa.com >> 613-738-6400

Power Outage Reporting and Information >> www.hydroottawa.com/outages >> 613-738-0188