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 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.
