Investing in NOTL

Niagara-on-the-Lake Hydro regularly invests in our system to keep it safe, reliable and to maintain costs for you, our shareholder. This page goes over some of that investment.

Transformers Upgrades

Niagara-on-the-Lake Hydro is currently investing $3.3 million in a project that will almost double the amount of power that can be brought into NOTL. This project will have the following benefits:

  • Provides the Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake with the capacity to handle expected growth and allow for new development opportunities in the territory;
  • Improve reliability so that each of NOTL Hydro’s transmission stations can now support the entire town (peak load in NOTL is approaching 60 MVA).  If power to one station is lost, as happened in April 2018, the other station can support the full town at any time of the year.

The $3.3 million investment includes the following:

  1. A new 83 MVA transformer is being built for NOTL Hydro by Northern Transformers in Vaughan, Ontario. It will be installed at the Bob Cheriton York Station.
  2. The 41.7 MVA transformer currently at York Station will be moved to the NOTL Station. It will replace a 35 year old 25 MVA transformer which is currently in service.
  3. The old 25 MVA transformer will be moved to a new location within NOTL station so that it can be connected in the near future.

These large transformers take the power from the Hydro One 115 kV transmission lines and convert them into a voltage of 27.6 kV. NOTL Hydro then distributes the power from our stations at this voltage through-out NOTL. Close to our customers home and businesses, the power is converted to the household and business voltages by the smaller transformers in the green boxes on the ground (underground service) or the grey cans on the poles (overhead service).

The cost of this project is already included in NOTL Hydro’s existing rates which remain the lowest in the Niagara Region and some of the lowest in the Province of Ontario.