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Hydro One wins international award for storm restoration

January 10, 2007 — The Edison Electric Institute today honoured Hydro One Networks as a winner of the association's "Emergency Recovery Award" for outstanding efforts to restore electric service following three successive severe storms this past summer and fall.

The Edison Electric Institute annually presents its "Emergency Recovery Award" in recognition of outstanding efforts in restoring electric service that has been disrupted by severe weather conditions or other natural events. Winners are chosen by a panel of judges following a continental nomination process.

Edison Electric Institute (EEI) is the association of United States investor-owned electric utilities and industry affiliates and associates worldwide. Its American members generate approximately three-quarters of all the electricity generated by electric utilities in the Unites States and serve about 70 percent of all ultimate customers in the nation.

Hydro One Networks saw outages of 170,000, 150,000 and 90,000 customers during respective storms this past July, August and September, and each time the company restored power within seven days to an affected service territory twice the size of Texas. With massive and repeated damage to its system, Hydro One crews logged an estimated 270,000 employee hours in some of the most challenging terrain in North America.

The company innovatively utilized helicopters to remove heavy debris during one storm, built a road to a hard-to-reach area of damage in another and efficiently used local employees to dispatch crews to unfamiliar terrain in the third.

"Hydro One Networks' employees showed incredible resilience and persistence in the face of these terrible storms," said EEI President Thomas R. Kuhn. "Their effort is an inspiration to the rest of our industry, and yet again shows the dedication of our industry to get electricity restored in the face of massive, weather-related power outages."

"It's great to be recognized by our peers for our ability to get the lights back on," said Myles D'Arcey, Hydro One Networks Senior Vice President of Customer Operations. "Our customers and our crews faced a very challenging summer of storms, and we're proud that we're considered among the best in the business at the safe and rapid restoration of electricity."

Hydro One owns and operates Ontario's 28,400 kilometre high-voltage transmission network that delivers electricity to large industrial customers and municipal utilities, and a 122,000 kilometre 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.

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For more information, 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.