On March 21 Hydro One Networks Inc., submitted its 2020-2022 Transmission Rate Application to the Ontario Energy Board. If approved, the $5 billion, three-year investment plan would help keep the system safe and reliable and would increase rates for the typical household by 77 cents (0.6 per cent) on their monthly bill in 2020.
"We know that every dollar we invest comes at a cost to our customers and the people of Ontario. This plan will keep the public safe and decrease the number of power outages," said Paul Dobson, Acting President and CEO, Hydro One. "We need to invest to replace, repair and upgrade equipment in almost every community across the province. At the same time, we are driving efficiencies to cut costs and focusing on only the most essential investments to keep the system safe, the power on and costs as low as possible. We are doing our part to take costs out of the system and have reduced our operating costs by 4 per cent since becoming a publicly-traded company in 2015."
Much of Hydro One's transmission system was built in the 1950s and is in need of investment:
One-in-four transformers are at their expected service life. More than 15 per cent of steel towers and 1,400 km of transmission lines are nearly 100 years old.
A safe and reliable high-voltage transmission system is essential to supporting strong and successful communities. An outage on the transmission system can leave tens of thousands of customers without power as well as cost large manufacturers millions of dollars in lost productivity and materials.
"Modest investments in the system today will help protect the public, ensure reliability and offset far more costly work in the future," said Dobson. "Newer technologies and designs also cost less to maintain and are more reliable and resilient to weather."
A copy of the investment plan is available at www.hydroone.com/systeminvestments.