Northern Exposure

Hydro One’s understanding of its customers’ needs extends far beyond simply providing them with an energy supply. Myles D’Arcey tells Power and Energy of the company’s responsibility for instilling a sense of community within its service territories.

“14 of the 18 remote communities Hydro One serves are at or below the poverty level”
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Coordinating its customers is no easy task for Hydro One. As a large province, Ontario incorporates a wide spread of both urban and rural areas, and must adapt itself to the different issues facing the different groups of customers. SVP of Customer Operations Myles D’Arcey explains that it is the demographic shift that determines what group its customers fit into. For example, Windsor is a region heavily impacted by forest products, so customers within the area are heavily impacted by the primary industry, to which Hydro One must respond to accordingly with programs that are suitable and fit this group of customers’ needs.

Challenges
D’Arcey is also President and CEO of Hydro One Remote Communities, and in this role he faces challenges very different from those of large utilities in big cities. “Part of the issue for us there is that these communities are fly-in, and there are a lot of them,” he says. “They’re not easily accessible, and they’re First Nation communities. Fourteen of the 18 that we serve are at or below the poverty level. A lot of people rely on social assistance to sustain their day-to-day lives and they’re diesel communities – it’s a high cost which is heavily subsidized by the people of Ontario.”

D’Arcey has firsthand experience of remote communities, traveling to them himself in order to achieve a greater sense of understanding of his customers and know how to provide to them with the energy that they need. He explains how a number of the company’s senior executives visited these communities last year; most of them had never been further north than Highway 7, which runs along Toronto’s northern boundary

As he explains, “Unless you’ve had an opportunity to see it firsthand, to meet with the people and understand their issues, it’s hard to put it into a white paper. We had the opportunity to meet with the chiefs’ council in the local communities, and it was a great opportunity for them to share with us what their goals and aspirations were too.

“Many equate it to going into what they’ve seen in pictures of a third world country, so it’s a very different lifestyle, very impoverished. But there’s still a lot of pride within the community. They want to succeed; they want to find ways in which to be successful. 
We try to work with them and build upon that, and look for opportunities in which we can generate win-win types of scenarios.”

He explains that having one-to-one meetings with local people makes all the difference in their relationship with those who service the community. The challenges for those providing the services are numerous, due to the disparities in the communities. But a sense of community spirit lies at the heart of Hydro One’s focus. Many of the company’s community programs, such as Community Citizenship and Power Play, are not even related to electricity, but their aim instead is simply to build up the relationship of the communities.

“We provide electricity to 1.3 million customers in the province of Ontario, predominately rural Ontario, so we have a presence in these communities where our staff live and work,” explains D’Arcey. “From our perspective, it’s an opportunity to help the community that we service. The focus with Power Play, for example, is linked back into the fact that for most rural Ontario communities, the local arena or community center is the focal point.

“It’s an opportunity to upgrade, modernize or get new equipment that the community relies upon for entertainment or sporting events. We live and work in those communities and it’s just giving a little something back.

“The other part that goes along with the citizenship program is the stewardship of assets. We definitely feel that we’ve been entrusted with these assets, and it’s up to us to make sure that we operate them safely and efficiently on behalf of the people of Ontario,” he says.

Savings
Hydro One has committed itself to its customers from the outset – its strategic objective is to, “Satisfy our customers with affordable, reliable and clean power.” Community is key, but as a utility, providing a reliable source of energy is its primary role. Providing energy to dispersed customers to ensure a constant and reliable source of energy is not as easy as it sounds, and certainly not when this is joined with a commitment to ensuring that the energy that is delivered is as environmentally sourced as possible.

In May, it was announced that Hydro One customers across Ontario had achieved annual energy savings of more than 400 million kilowatt hours – a huge saving that speaks volumes for the company’s success.

D’Arcey advises that the savings were due to a combination of programs currently being implemented by Hydro One. “One is directly related back into the conservation demand management plans that were put in place by the local distribution companies in conjunction with the Ontario Power Authority,” he says. “Those are everything from fridge roundup programs distribution of compact fluorescents,  rebates on timers and switches, dimmer switches and so on, all of which can reduce the overall consumption from individuals.

“From my perspective, the key is making those programs available to your customers and giving the customers a choice to have access to them or creating an incentive for them to look at them or making it easier for them to take advantage of it. We support a number of those – the OPA funds the programs, the distribution companies put them together, and we work with the programs we believe to be conducive. We then provide access to our customers to all of those programs.

“In Canada, there are federal programs and provincial programs, and there are also the ones that are provided to by the local distribution companies. We’ve put together a group we call our Green Team, and if customers require individual assistance with that, we’ll help them walk through it and navigate some of that. There are a myriad of opportunities out there for customers to take advantage of programs, but they may not necessarily always be aware of which ones are applicable to their particular situation,” he says.

Hydro One remains sensitive to its customers’ needs. For those low-income customers who face difficulties paying their electricity bills and who may be in arrears, the company induces a number of options to alleviate the stress. “The first part is just communication, so that’s making sure that people are aware of what their bill is and where they stand, so that they can take effective steps,” D’Arcey explains.

“We provide them with different options for payment programs so that they can help to manage the bill. If they get behind we do try to work with them to set up a payment plan. We also provide programs for those on low incomes, which helps us to provide customers access to funding from social programs to help offset some of their energy costs.”

Myles D’Arcey is SVP Customer Operations at Hydro One, and President and CEO of Hydro One Remote Communities, which offers generation and distribution services in Ontario’s far north.