Hydro One : Media Centre : News Releases

Home > Media Centre > News Releases

News Releases

Energy Conservation Week: Hydro One customers save enough Energy in 2007 to power a small city for one year

May 30, 2008 — Hydro One announced today that in 2007, Hydro One's conservation and demand management measures realized more than 170 million kilowatt of energy savings. Together with additional kWh savings since the program's inception in 2005, the Company's measures have resulted in savings of 272 million kWh of energy in Ontario, or enough electricity to meet the needs of a small city for a year (23,000 homes). Carbon emissions were reduced by 178,000 tonnes.

To date, participation in one or more of Hydro One's conservation and demand management initiatives has reached almost 1.2 million. In total, over the life of the products installed, these combined efforts are expected to generate almost 1.5 billion in kilowatt-hour savings, enough to power 120,000 homes for a year.

Conservation highlights at the end of 2007 included installation of 10,000 web-enabled thermostats in houses and businesses, to enable changes in central air conditioning temperatures without having to be on site. In addition, 2,200 traffic signals in 16 Ontario municipalities were replaced with LED technologies, resulting in annual savings of 1.7 million kWh of energy.

"The numbers say it all," said Laura Formusa, President and CEO, Hydro One. Our customers' participation in our many conservation programs clearly demonstrates their desire to work with us to establish a conservation culture in Ontario. I am pleased to confirm such positive conservation results during Energy Conservation Week. I would like to thank and congratulate Hydro One customers for their efforts to conserve energy - a precious resource."

During 2007, Hydro One customers rid themselves of more than 11,000 old fridges, freezers and air conditioners through the appliance recycling program. Hydro One arranged to pick up customers' old appliances, and ensure their recycling and disposal in an environmentally-friendly manner. In September, the company also launched an online audit program to help residents and business customers find ways to reduce electricity consumption. More than 4,000 audits were completed in the program's first four months.

In addition to energy savings, the demand for electricity during peak periods has been reduced by almost 64 MW or the average peak demand. Hydro One's Conservation and Demand program provides a range of incentives to help customers save electricity and money, and ease strain on the provincial electricity grid during peak demand periods.

Hydro One's Conservation programs are also geared to meet the needs of Hydro One's diverse customer base and are part of a company-wide commitment to achieving substantial energy savings on a year by year basis.

In 2005, Hydro One launched pilot projects in all its customer sectors including residential, farm, commercial, industrial, municipalities, schools and hospitals. Some of the initiatives include the use of equipment to measure residential electricity use and associated costs in real time; smart thermostats that remotely control central air conditioning, and free pickup of old low efficiency appliances, such as air conditioners and refrigerators, to encourage consumers to eliminate use of under-utilized appliances.

In addition to providing customers with conservation tools, Hydro One continues to green the organization internally, with measures which include an anti-idling program and greater use of hybrid fuels to reduce fuel consumption and reduce the Company's carbon footprint.

Powerful Numbers

1,000,000		Tonnes of CO2 Emissions reduced over the lifetime of all the energy efficient measures undertaken by Hydro one customers to date, representing 20% of the province's results.
970,000		The number of energy efficient products Hydro One customers purchased during the two Every Kilowatt Counts programs; accounting for 20% of the province's results.
850,000		The number of energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs purchased to date by Hydro One customers.
420,000		The amount of incentive dollars business, institutional and farms customers received by participating in the Power$aver Business Incentive program.
178,000		Tonnes of carbon emissions saved by Hydro one customers in 2007.
31,000		PowerCost Monitors made available to customers in northern Ontario; providing them with real time feedback on their actual electricity use and cost. This measure alone can reduce electricity consumption by 15% for these customers.
10,000		The number of participants in the Residential Load Control Program by December, 2007.
11,000		Old refrigerators, freezers and room air conditioners picked up for free through the Cold Shoulder Appliance Pickup program.
5,500		The number of homes which received efficiency improvements through 112 social housing providers.
2,200		Traffic signals in 16 Ontario municipalities replaced with LED technologies.

Hydro One delivers electricity safely, reliably and responsibly to homes and businesses across the province of Ontario and owns and operates Ontario's 29,000 km high-voltage transmission network that delivers electricity to large industrial customers and municipal utilities, and a 122,000 km low-voltage distribution system that serves about 1.3 million end-use customers and smaller municipal utilities in the province. Hydro One is wholly owned by the Province of Ontario.

-30-

Media inquiries: Please contact Hydro One Media Relations 24 hours a day at 1-877-506-7584 (toll-free in Ontario only) or 416-345-6868. Our website is www.HydroOne.com.

[ Printable Version ]