We’re investing in the future. From 2026 to 2030, we’ll replace our aging infrastructure, modernize our grid and partner with customers who use Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). We’ve tied these investments to our customers’ needs, each project making the grid more resilient and our service more reliable.
Why are we doing this now? It’s simple. The future of energy is changing. And it’s happening faster than we could have imagined. But we’re not alone in this transition. The widespread adoption of electric vehicles, solar panels and heat pumps has put a large demand on utilities across the country. To keep up, we have to invest and expand.
In a recent episode of our ThinkEnergy podcast, Guillaume Paradis, Hydro Ottawa’s chief operating officer of generation and distribution, spoke with host Trevor Freeman about Hydro Ottawa’s largest investment plan ever.
“Electricity underpins most of our societal aspirations with respect to creating a more sustainable future, creating the future we want to leave for the next generations,” Paradis said. “It creates a situation where there’s a significant need for us to invest, continue to invest and reinvest in our infrastructure to deliver those outcomes for customers.”
To protect our grid against climate change and prepare it for growing electricity demand, we prioritized our investment plan into four categories:
- Growth and electrification
- Aging infrastructure
- Grid modernization
- Grid resilience
Let’s dive into each section and talk about how our investments will impact you.
Growth and electrification
We use electricity to charge our phones, tablets and laptops. We use it to control the temperature in our homes and to power our vehicles. Although we may not think about the amount of energy we use every day, our electrified lifestyles put a lot of additional pressure on the grid.
In fact, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) predicts that the growing demand for electricity will shift Ontario from a summer-peaking region to a dual-peaking region by 2030. At 27,000 Megawatts, our summer and winter peaks will be the same.
But our personal energy usage isn’t the only reason demand is growing.
“One big change that we’ve seen over the last few years is more large-scale demand requests coming into our service territory,” Paradis said. “What we’re seeing a lot of are instances where large corporations decide to do away with more carbon-intensive energy sources, so they will look to us and electricity to replace what previously would have been another fuel source that maybe is less green.”
To relieve some of the stress on our infrastructure, we’re investing in non-wire solutions and encouraging customers to adopt Distributed Energy Resources. With solar panels and other DERs, you can generate your own electricity and opt-in to net metering, which allows you to send power to the grid for a credit on your bill.
If we fail to meet the growing electricity demand, we’ll see more frequent and widespread power outages. This will force us to limit new connections to the grid, affecting Ottawa’s economic growth and development.
If you’re interested in joining our net metering program, fill out a service request form. Once we review your application, we’ll reach out to you about the connection process.
To learn more about the program, visit our website or contact us at [email protected].
Aging infrastructure
Our infrastructure is aging, with a significant portion of our assets reaching the end of their service life. Over the next decade, we anticipate losing another 15 per cent of our assets due to age. This is a considerable challenge when you consider the scale of our network: just under 50,000 poles and over 6,000 kilometers of wire. If we don’t replace this infrastructure—including our poles, transformers, and underground cables—our grid won’t be able to handle the effects of climate change and the more frequent and extreme storms that come with it. That’s why we must carefully coordinate with our teams to upgrade the necessary assets without disrupting our customers' lives.
To reduce the number of outages we see each year and ensure that your power supply is reliable, we’re using a large section of our budget to replace old and at-risk equipment. On top of this, we’ll continue to perform maintenance work on all of our assets to ensure they last.
If we don’t replace our assets, the grid will remain vulnerable to extreme weather. Heavy storms will tip hydro poles and flood substations, causing lasting outages more frequently.
Grid modernization
When we talk about grid modernization, we’re talking about upgrading our electrical system to meet the demands of our growing community. We’re making these upgrades a priority. After all, technology has grown significantly since we built our infrastructure in the 1960s.
“Our ability to collect data in real-time was not possible, like it is today,” said Paradis. “And so now that we have an opportunity to reinvest and replace the old assets, it’s important that we do so in a manner that will allow us to drive better performance out of the assets we put in our system.”
As we replace our infrastructure over the next five years, we’ll also install real-time technology to the grid. We’ll use sensors and smart meters, for example, to record important information about our customers’ energy usage. Further, we’ll install automated switches that allow us to shift demand during outages and reconnect your power faster.
If we don’t take the steps to modernize our grid, your power supply will be less reliable, and outages will last longer. With real-time technology, on the other hand, we’ll know when you lose power, and can work to restore it immediately.
Grid resilience
Climate change continues to warm the planet, creating the conditions for more severe weather. Today, heavy storms frequently knock over hydro poles and cause outages. That’s why we have to consider climate change in all of our decision making.
“We’ve seen a number of very impactful weather events over the last few years,” Paradis said. “We saw a derecho a couple of years ago, which was by some measure the most impactful storm in the history of our company. And so we know what we plan to withstand has evolved, and we need to reflect that in the decisions we make when we invest in our infrastructure.”
To strengthen our grid and keep you connected, we plan to make several investments. That said, the simplest answer may also be the most impactful: we’re changing our standards. This means we’ll use storm-hardening equipment and systems that can withstand extreme weather to protect your connection even in the worst of conditions.
Challenges
As we’ve outlined here, our investment plan revolves around replacing aging equipment. For reasons that Paradis highlights in his ThinkEnergy interview, this isn’t as straightforward as it sounds.
To start, as our city grows, a large percentage of our infrastructure is becoming harder to access. We may have to replace cables buried in someone’s backyard or work on a hydro pole in the middle of a busy intersection.
Further, to build or upgrade substation equipment, we have to plan extensively. This infrastructure is critical to our system’s reliability, and we often have to work for years before construction on new equipment can begin.
Listen now to dive deeper into our five-year plan.