Hydro One To Invest $20 Million in Muskoka and Parry Sound

Hydro One’s $20 million investment this year in the Districts of Muskoka and Parry Sound will improve reliability and reduce tree-related outages for Hydro One customers. Trees represent the single largest cause of power outages in this densely wooded area. The investment includes line clearing, annual maintenance and upgrades to more than 1,000 kilometres of lines on Hydro One’s electricity distribution system.

In 2015, trees caused more than 400 outages on the segments of line targeted by this investment. Over 40,000 Hydro One customers in the area will benefit from this investment, along with a number of large industrial customers, generators and local electric utilities connected to Hydro One’s Muskoka Transmission Station.

“In addition to improving reliability,” says Jon Rebick, Vice President, Provincial Lines and Forestry, Hydro One, “we are taking steps to complete this work in a manner that creates the least possible disruption for our customers. For the vast majority of the project, our highly trained crews will be able to do their work while the lines are electrified so we can keep electricity flowing to local homes and businesses.”

To reduce impact on traffic and business during busy summer months and improve efficiency, lines staff will conduct annual maintenance work of replacing end-of-life or damaged distribution equipment and poles at the same time forestry work is being done.

Hydro One delivers electricity to 1.3 million customers across Ontario, and to large industrial customers and municipal utilities. It owns and operates Ontario’s 29,000 km circuit high-voltage transmission network and a 123,000 circuit km primary low-voltage distribution network.

Photo source: Hydro One