Latest news with #HydroOttawa
CBC
4 days ago
- Climate
- CBC
Thuderstorms take out trees, power in Outaouais, eastern Ontario
More than 40,000 local customers are without power after Thursday evening's series of thunderstorms. Severe thunderstorm warnings rumbled across eastern Ontario and western Quebec from about 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. When the storm was at its worst, it produced a tornado warning around Sharbot Lake, gusts of wind up to 90 km/h and lightning, Environment Canada told Radio-Canada. CBC News is checking and it's not yet clear whether a tornado happened. As of 10:15 a.m. Friday around 22,000 customers were without power in eastern Ontario, according to Hydro One, and about 21,000 addresses in the Outaouais were out. The Bancroft and La Pêche areas have the most customers in the dark. It should take most of the day for power to be restored in Bancroft, according to Hydro One. Hydro Ottawa's outage map shows about 600 customers without power. Photos from of Chelsea and Wakefield north of Ottawa show trees that were partially uprooted or snapped and Hydro-Québec workers responding to fallen branches which hit power lines. In Gatineau, the Festival Parasol had to be cancelled Thursday night thanks to the weather. Otherwise, Gatineau police said they only responded to minor incidents like fallen branches.
Ottawa Citizen
13-07-2025
- Climate
- Ottawa Citizen
Power outages in Ottawa affect more than 30,000 customers
Around 30,485 customers were affected by multiple power outages across Ottawa on Sunday afternoon. Article content According to the outage map on the Hydro Ottawa website, around 22,389 customers were affected by power outages in an area spanning from Bayshore all the way to Westboro and Carlington. Article content Article content More than 4,300 customers in an area stretching from Centrepointe to the edges of Barrhaven West were also affected by power outages. Article content Article content Hundreds of customers in Hintonburg, Billings Bridge and Vanier were affected as well. Article content Article content The causes of the outages were still under investigation as of 2:34 p.m., according to the outage map. Article content Hydro Ottawa said in a social media post at 2:10 p.m. that it was aware of the outages and crews were trying to restore power to the affected areas. Article content At 2:27 p.m., the company said power was restored to customers impacted by the outages in the Carling, Richmond and Nepean wards. The cause of the outage was 'a loss of power from the provincial grid.' Article content The outages came as Ottawans tried to stay cool in the middle of a heat wave. Daytime temperatures peaked at 31 C on Sunday and are expected to dip to 20 C at night. A thunderstorm warning was also issued by Environment Canada earlier in the day. Article content
CTV News
13-07-2025
- Climate
- CTV News
West end outage caused by loss of power from provincial grid: Hydro Ottawa
Power lines are seen against cloudy skies near Murvale, Ont., northwest of Kingston, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld Hydro Ottawa says thousands of people in Ottawa's west end briefly lost power Sunday afternoon. In a post on X at 2:10 p.m., the utility said it was investigating an outage affecting 30,485 customers. About 20 minutes later, Hydro Ottawa said it had restored the electricity. The outage was caused by a loss of power from the provincial grid, the utility says. The utility's outage map showed showed it covering a large area near Highway 417 including the neighbourhoods of Westboro, Highland Park, Carlingwood, Lincoln Heights, Britannia and Bayshore. A severe thunderstorm warning is in effect in Ottawa. Environment Canada warns outages are 'likely' as storms move across the region on Sunday afternoon.
CBC
26-06-2025
- Business
- CBC
Ottawa's electricity use projected to surge, forcing grid expansion
Demand for electricity in Ottawa is projected to soar over the next two decades, especially during the winter, and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of new infrastructure is being planned to ensure power continues to get to the city's grid. The upgrades and expansions could be paid for, at least in part, by a proposed $6.08 increase to residential users' monthly Hydro Ottawa bills as of January 2026. By 2043, Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) estimates electricity use in winter will jump a whopping 166 per cent in Ottawa. Summer demand is also expected to grow, but at a slower rate of 33 per cent. The IESO, which manages Ontario's electricity needs, has spent the past couple of years working with the many players in the industry to update its forecasts for the power Ottawa will need. It released a roadmap this month for how to meet that demand. The main reason why winter electricity use might someday eclipse the demand of summer air conditioning comes down to how buildings are heated, said Kennan Ip, the IESO's senior manager of transmission integration for eastern and northern Ontario. Gas furnaces are expected to be swapped out for electric heat pumps, he explained. The economy and population are also expected to grow, and the City of Ottawa has stated goals to transition away from fossil fuels. The municipality is buying e-buses and expanding its electric light rail system. Residents are plugging in electric vehicles. Hydro Ottawa reports ministry data showing about 17,000 electric vehicles are already registered in the city. As generative artificial intelligence takes off, companies that build power-hungry data centres are also seeking to tie into the grid, said Hydro Ottawa Group CEO Bryce Conrad. Those warehouses filled with IT servers require significant power for cooling. Transmission lines, substations needed The IESO recommends more stations in Ottawa and two more transmission lines in the west of the city in the next few years alone — building blocks to keep up with the anticipated surge in demand. The system is reliable right now, but nimble planning and care is needed to make sure it stays that way, said Ip. "The key is you don't want to overbuild because it will certainly be a negative impact to to our ratepayers," he said. "But at the same time, you don't want to underbuild because you'll end up being that barrier to to growth." Even though the downtown will see great demand for power, it's extremely costly to add underground cables, he explained. Instead, the recommendation is to build out capacity in Kanata, Stittsville and Nepean to shift the load. Hydro Ottawa Group is responsible for its own substations, poles and lines that take high-voltage power from transmission lines and convert it to lower voltage that can be distributed to homes and businesses. The municipally owned utility sees spending a record $1.2 billion over the next five years — double what it's been spending on capital infrastructure. Where it usually builds a substation every five years, it will build one each year, Conrad said. "So a massive, massive upswing in the amount of work that needs to be done, and that's just to keep pace with what we know is coming," said Conrad. In his annual presentation to city council on Wednesday, Conrad underscored the global trend toward electrification and away from fossil fuels. "Make no mistake: This shift is seismic," he told them. Bills could rise $6 per month To help pay for all of this infrastructure, electricity distributors in other cities have applied to increase their rates, and Ottawa is doing the same, Conrad said. The city has an application before the Ontario Energy Board that proposes raising the distribution part of the bill for which Hydro Ottawa is responsible by 17.6 per cent come Jan. 1, 2026, or $6.08 per month on average. That would be followed by an increase of $3.79 in 2027, $3.31 in 2028, $2.76 in 2029 and $2.78 in 2030, according to documents submitted to the board. The cost of generating and transmitting the power makes up the bulk of a hydro bill, while less than a quarter goes to Hydro Ottawa for distributing that electricity. But Conrad says ratepayers can't foot the entire bill for all of this infrastructure. He called on the federal government to contribute, because he sees building capacity on the electricity grid as a nation-building project. "We've got to do in the next 20 years what it's taken us 100 years to do," he said.
CTV News
25-06-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Hydro Ottawa plans ‘seismic shift' in spending to improve electricity infrastructure
Hydro Ottawa needs to raise distribution rates by $3.79 to $6.08 a month for five years to fund a 'seismic shift' in capital spending to boost the hydro grid, according to the utility's CEO. The municipal utility has filed an application to the Ontario Energy Board to increase distribution rates between 2026 and 2030, to fund hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades to the hydro infrastructure. 'We're talking about a seismic shift in the amount of capital that we're doing,' Hydro Ottawa CEO Bryce Conrad told Council Wednesday morning. 'It's 250 per cent of what we have done in the previous plan to support the grid, to support the growth.' Under the proposal, Hydro Ottawa wants to increase distribution rates $6.08 a month in 2026, and then between $2.72 and $3.79 a month between 2027 and 2030. Conrad said the 'necessary investments' required to boost the electricity infrastructure in Ottawa 'will not be cheap.' 'The scale and scope of the electricity infrastructure investment is simply too large to be born exclusively by local ratepayers,' Conrad said. 'Additional support from upper levels of government is required to ensure this last mile distribution is available.' Conrad notes Toronto Hydro and other utilities are also proposing to increase distribution rates to fund infrastructure upgrades and expansion. Hydro Ottawa will spend $1.195 billion over five years to improve hydro infrastructure, with 55 per cent of the funding going towards 'growth and electrification' to power the growing city and 'service customers' changing needs for electricity, including solutions such as new technologies.' The utility said its investment plan includes enabling energy transition and reducing emissions, responding to rising costs and hiring more workers. Some councillors told Hydro Ottawa officials they have received calls about hydro outages in their ward and wondered if the grid is strong enough to support the growing city. Conrad said tree contact is the number one cause of power outages in Ottawa. 'Any outage is one too many,' Conrad said, adding Hydro Ottawa saw improvements in grid reliability last year compared to 2023. 'If I'm being very honest with you, we've had a number of tree contacts and things of that nature which cause periodic momentary outages. We also tend to have more than our fair share of bad drivers in this town that like to hit poles and construction crews with excavators that like to hit overhead wires.' Hydro Ottawa has 364,334 residential and business customers in Ottawa and serves 1,116 sq. km of area. Residents are invited to provide feedback to the Ontario Energy Board. Hydro Ottawa's monthly distribution rate increased $4.92 a month for residential customers in 2024 and $0.16 per month this year.
