Hydro One confirmed with Bullet Point News that Friday’s outage was due to the failure of a sleeve used to hold up power lines. Equipment failures like this are the reason for a greater number of power outages compared to natural causes like trees impacting hydro infrastructure.
While outages continue to frustrate residents and business owners, Hydro One has claimed noticeable reductions in recent years regarding the number of local outages and average amount of time Stouffville customers spend without power.
Hydro One promised end of life equipment upgrades and improvements meant to re-route power and limit the number of customers affected when these system impacts occur. Council requested they advance the timelines for these projects last August. However, Stouffville’s Council has no direct control over Hydro One planning or operations.
Mayor Lovatt made the following clear in a recent online post: “Hydro One’s infrastructure is not owned by the Town… Council has no say in their service… We have no authority over their operations… The Council you have elected has nothing to do with the stability of the electrical grid.”
Residents can submit complaints to the Hydro One ombudsman by emailing Ombudsman@HydroOne.com, and Bullet Point News will bring you additional coverage of this issue in the near future.
