Ontario’s Electricity Regulation Crisis Report ““ Part 22: More Media Manipulation by Tony’s Hydro (Formerly Toronto Hydro)

Having failed to convince the Ontario Energy Board in its most recent application for a large rate increase that power reliability in Toronto is in crisis, management at Tony’s Hydro (formerly Toronto Hydro) is working up its sky-is-falling message with the media.

Starting January 16, the utility has issued five press releases about power outages. One of the press releases related to an outage that affected a handful of addresses. The other four releases all relate to a single event affecting several blocks east of downtown.

Over the two years prior to the utility’s current dispute with the Ontario Energy Board, the utility issued one press release on a power outage. That release addressed a large-scale outage on July 5, 2010 in a central part of the city blacking out tens of thousands of customers and caused by a failure on the Hydro One transmission system.

In an apparent effort to apply pressure on the regulator, in the lead-up to the Ontario Energy Board bringing down its January 5th decision ordering the utility to comply with the rules that apply to the other electricity distributors in the province, the utility was pressing its sky-is-falling message with the press including articles in the Toronto Sun and the Globe and Mail.

Lately under the leadership of CEO Anthony Haines, it appears that the utility considers that outages are an asset.

4 Comments

  1. I personally reported 3 outages in one day in our neighbourhood and not one press release. Tony missed his opportunity for the Guildwood area in Scarborough but perhaps it was because we were fighting offshore industrial wind turbines while TH were scooping up an ownership position in the iconic Exhibition Place turbine from the GEAA crowd? Selective Spin eh?

  2. Pingback: Ontario’s Electricity Regulation Crisis Report – Part 30: Ratepayer/Taxpayer Impacts of Management’s Hissy Fit at Tony’s Hydro (Formerly Toronto Hydro) | Tom Adams Energy - ideas for a smarter grid

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