This evening, I met with many Thorncliffe Park residents who have questions and concerns about the reliability of their electricity supply. For those folks who are new to this web site and are interested in the Thorncliffe Park blackout of March 8-10, here is a very brief list of references that might help folks sort through a much larger body of material posted on this site.

I started a series of reports on Toronto Hydro’s conflict with the Ontario Energy Board on January 12, 2012. Part 1 raised concerns about the developing conflict, in particular threats of harm to the public. In meeting with concerned residents this evenings, it seems that Toronto Hydro has been very effective in getting out their propaganda message that the Thorncliffe problem was caused by not enough money. Part 3 points out that not enough money is a new excuse. Only a few years ago the utility’s long term capital plan said that the utility’s capital requirements were very modest by today’s standards. Instead of replacement, back then the utility blended its efforts, extending the life of old assets coupled with accelerated replacement. This blended approach is widely accepted as good utility practice but has recently been abandoned by Toronto Hydro in favour of massive capital spending. Part 32 summarized developments up to February 13. Part 55 provides a discussion of Toronto Hydro negligence in responding to Hurricane Sandy. Part 57 discusses what really happened to cause the Thorncliffe Park blackout March 8. Part 62 discusses the gag clause of the settlement offer and tries to draw together some of the threads of the story that must be terribly hard to follow for even my most patient readers.

You can navigate to the whole “Ontario Electricity Regulation Crisis Report” series by scrolling down your screen to a right hand sidebar called “Categories” where you will find this series.