Hydro Ottawa looking at burying more power lines after latest storm

A report from Hydro Ottawa says the devastating windstorm earlier this year has pushed the organization to prioritize burying some hydro lines and improving communication with customers during "large-scale weather events."

The report from the local utility reflected on and reviewed the impact of the May 21 derecho that took out more than 500 hydro poles and left thousands of customers without power for days.

In the past, it's warned about the costs of burying hydro lines — both upfront and in terms of maintenance — but the report says burying lines in strategic locations could help avoid some larger disruptions.

"It's expensive, but we expect these storms, hopefully not derechos … [to] become more and more frequent and more and more severe. It's our job to plan for that." said Bryce Conrad, president and CEO of Hydro Ottawa.

• What's a derecho and why is it so destructive?
• Power utilities grapple with latest climate threat: catastrophic winds

Conrad said lines could be buried along north-south corridors such as Woodroffe Avenue, Merivale Road or Greenbank Road — all damaged in the 2018 tornadoes and last May's powerful wind storm — so power could be rerouted in the event of another widespread outage.

Burying lines across the city "would make no sense" given the cost, he said. Hydro Ottawa has previously estimated servicing underground lines costs 11 times more than overhead wires, and burying all the lines in its territory would take 90 years and $10 billion.

"Just because the infrastructure is buried doesn't mean it's perfect nor is it protected," Conrad said.

The prospect of burying lines will be considered on a case-by-case basis as the city does other road work, said Conrad, while other efforts to protect infrastructure, such as using composite material poles along some corridors, will help.

Trying to protect against 190 km/h winds would be cost-prohibitive, he added.

"We're not building to meet the next derecho. We're building to meet the next severe weather events, which can be up to and including 135-145 [km/h] winds," he said.  

Conrad said he's seeing the real effects of climate change in the service area with more severe weather events.

Cost hits city dividend

The report updated the estimated cost of this storm's recovery to $23.8 million, which is less than the estimated $30 million cost included in a City of Ottawa memo released in September.

Conrad said that will affect the municipally-owned company's bottom line and reduce the dividend paid out to the city by up to $3.6 million, unless the province follows through on promised recovery funding.

In an interview with CBC News Monday, Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethanfalvy said talks about the funding were still underway.

The derecho itself took 15 minutes to wreak havoc on Hydro Ottawa's infrastructure, but it took days to understand its scope. Conrad said his initial report of 225 poles needing repair eventually soared to 540. 

While more than half of Hydro Ottawa customers had power restored within 48 hours, some were left waiting weeks. Conrad did point to a success of the response effort: a lack of workplace injuries among crews working long hours to restore power.

Update to outage map coming

The report's section on improving communication and planning focused on a need to prepare for larger and longer-lasting service disruptions — a process that involves looking at utilities that regularly deal with severe weather "such as hurricanes."

Conrad said Hydro Ottawa will launch a text message-based system for customers to report and receive updates on outages.

He said the failure of the outage map during the derecho will also be addressed. He said a new and improved outage map is in the works so it can provide useful information to customers and the strategic operations team during a large-scale event. 

The city's emergency broadcast system could have been used more effectively during the May 2022 response, he added.

Read the full report