Hydro Ottawa Presents 2023 Annual Report to City Council

June 25, 2024

Hydro Ottawa Holding Inc. presented its 2023 Annual Report, highlighting successes in enabling sustainable energy solutions for customers, preparing for and responding to extreme weather events, and maintaining a safe and reliable supply of electricity.

Board Chair, Bernie Ashe, and President and Chief Executive Officer, Bryce Conrad, presented the company’s 2023 results during the Annual General Meeting today before Ottawa City Council. They also provided an update on the company’s portfolio of locally-based clean energy project partnerships, ongoing efforts to boost grid resilience in the face of increasingly frequent severe weather events, and plans for investing in distribution system infrastructure over the coming years to support the city’s growth and increased electrification of the economy.

Hydro Ottawa’s core mandate remains unchanged: to provide a safe, reliable supply of electricity to approximately 364,000 residential and commercial customers that rely upon the company every day; and to ensure a more sustainable energy future for its community.

Quick Facts

• Hydro Ottawa’s 2023 consolidated net income was $24.1 million.
• In accordance with the City Council-approved dividend policy, Hydro Ottawa’s dividend payment to the City will be $20 million this year, which will be used by the City to fund municipal programs and services.
• Despite the impacts of extreme weather events, Hydro Ottawa’s maintained high levels of service reliability and achieved its second best-ever outage frequency result. On average, Hydro Ottawa customers had power 99.92 per cent of the time.
• As part of its focus on improving emergency preparedness and response, Hydro Ottawa introduced outage alert notifications to customers via text message and email, along with a new online outage map with enhanced functionality.
• Hydro Ottawa announced a partnership with The Ottawa Hospital to design and develop an energy-efficient central utility plant for its new Civic Campus. The plant will sustainably power the state-of-the-art facility and help minimize its carbon footprint.
• Portage Power, the company’s renewable energy subsidiary, was awarded a 20-year contract for Renewable Energy Certificates from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, through the State’s Renewable Energy Standard program.
• Envari, the company’s energy and utility services business, continued to advance its signature carbon-reduction partnerships: supporting OC Transpo with transitioning to a zero-emission bus fleet and assisting the Ottawa International Airport Authority in reducing its energy consumption and environmental footprint.
• To help enable a smart and connected National Capital Region, Hydro Ottawa publicly launched its new telecommunications affiliate, Hiboo Networks, which will provide fiber optic network solutions to businesses and institutions in Ottawa and Gatineau.
• Hydro Ottawa achieved a 91 per cent overall customer satisfaction score and maintained the highest e-billing participation rate among Ontario distribution utilities (65 per cent).
• The journey towards becoming the first municipally-owned utility in Canada to achieve net-zero operations continued with the procurement of additional electric vehicles (EVs) for field crews, the installation of EV chargers at work centres, and the launch of environmental assessment and public consultation processes for the Piperville Municipal Transformer Station, which is being developed using low-carbon design and construction techniques.
• During an 84-day labour strike, Hydro Ottawa successfully executed its contingency plans for maintaining service to customers and mobilizing additional resources to assist with outage restoration.
• Hydro Ottawa’s employee-driven charitable campaign raised more than $142,000 for United Way Eastern Ontario and $53,000 for the Royal Ottawa Prompt Care Clinic. In addition, sponsorships and donations totalling $102,000 were contributed through the Community Investment Program to local organizations supporting vulnerable groups and seeking to build stronger and healthier communities.