Hydro Ottawa asks customers for feedback on five-year plan

Hydro Ottawa Customer Consultation invites feedback on electricity distribution reliability, five-year investments, infrastructure upgrades, outage restoration, and LRT growth, informing Ontario Energy Board rate setting via public survey, focus groups, and telephone polls.

OTTAWA, ONTARIO – Hydro Ottawa has launched a website and online survey to seek input from its customers on a five-year distribution plan that will help determine the company’s priorities and rates between 2016 and 2020.

The customer consultation is designed to collect consumer feedback on the reliability of Ottawa’s electricity distribution system and the spending decisions, including green energy acquisitions, Hydro Ottawa will make over the next five years.

The plan highlights major issues the utility is looking to address, including:

- Replacing aging infrastructure to protect its hydro heritage, past the anticipated end-of-life, with some more than 50 years old

- Serving a growing city and population, including building infrastructure needed to serve new communities via record investments over recent years, intensification projects and the Light Rail Transit project

- Improving the power system with targeted investments that will restore outages more quickly and/or remotely and

- Refurbishing and replacing costly facilities and equipment, and evaluating hydro plant acquisitions as part of its portfolio.

All feedback collected will be included with the utility’s application to its regulator, the Ontario Energy Board, as part of the rate setting process. Focus groups and telephone surveys are also being conducted.

To learn more about Hydro Ottawa’s five-year plan and to complete the online survey, please visit hydroottawa.com/survey.

Quick Facts

- Hydro Ottawa bills customers and collects payments, but only keeps about 20 percent of what the customer pays. The other 80 percent is passed on, without mark-up, to other companies responsible for generating electricity, transmitting it, and to regulators and the provincial government.

- Hydro Ottawa’s distribution rates must be approved by the Ontario Energy Board based on applications by the utility. The rate setting process is open and transparent, and, as seen with challenges for Toronto Hydro, it draws public interest across Ontario, with opportunities for public participation. - Hydro Ottawa must submit evidence to demonstrate the amount of funding it needs to safely and reliably distribute electricity to its customers.

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