Toronto Hydro $750 million for aging infrastructure

[amor de cosmos]

Toronto Hydro cleared to spend $750 million to replace aging equipment
Toronto Hydro will spend $750 million over the next two years to replace aging equipment. Rates will rise about $3 a month
By: John Spears Business reporter, Published on Wed Apr 03 2013



It then re-submitted a spending plan covering two years instead of three, and asking for a total of $750 million for equipment renewal and training.

The biggest win for Toronto Hydro in Tuesday’s decision appears to be its application to build a $184 million transformer station (originally priced at $195 million) on Bremner Blvd.

The new station is needed, Toronto Hydro said, to back up an aging transformer station in the financial core, which currently has no safety net.

A major failure at that station could knock out power to the city’s biggest office towers, the Rogers Centre, Union Station and the CBC, Toronto Hydro warned.

The time needed to restore power in the event of a major breakdown, it said, might be measured “in days, possibly weeks.”



Other projects approved include:

• $108 million to replace aging poles and overhead equipment. Some intervenors at the hearing had criticized Toronto Hydro’s approach of replacing all poles in an area, and said it should only replace poles that are failing. The board rejected the argument.
  
• Toronto Hydro’s approach “minimizes cost and disruption, compared to doing it on a pole by pole basis as they fail,” it ruled.
• $54 million to replace handwells in sidewalks that give access to underground power lines. Stray electricity leaking from handwells was electrocuting dogs several years ago. Toronto Hydro has been replacing handwells since then, and asked for funding to replace all remaining handwells.
  
  Some intervenors at the energy board had asked for a more limited replacement, but the board accepted Toronto Hydro’s argument that it “would increase the risks to public safety, and could be more expensive.”
  
• $172.3 million for replacing underground cables, transformers and vaults. Again, the board said a go-slow approach that might reduce immediate spending isn’t merited:
  
  “Having found that the work is required and prudent, any reduction to the program is arbitrary and not supported by any evidence.”

http://www.thestar.com/business/2013...equipment.html