Kingston Hydro’s 2015 performance has, again, received high scores from the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) – the third year the energy regulator has issued a scorecard.  The scorecard confirms that Kingston Hydro continues to perform strongly against provincial targets.

“Kingston Hydro benefits from being operated as part of Utilities Kingston’s multi-utility structure.  Our high scores highlight the customer service and cost saving benefits of this service delivery model. I’m also proud to report that we’ve achieved or exceeded 2015 industry and distributor targets”, says Jim Keech, president and CEO of Utilities Kingston.

Utilities Kingston provides multiple utility services under one roof, including water, wastewater, gas, electricity and fibre optics, which is unique amongst Ontario’s utility providers.  

Below are some of the highlights of the Kingston Hydro scorecard. For additional information, visit the OEB website for frequently asked questions and an overview of performance measures.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE KINGSTON HYDRO SCORECARD, FOR 2015:

Customer focus:

• Kingston Hydro received perfect scores – 100 per cent – again this year for meeting 816 appointments and connecting 257 new residential and small business services on time.
• It scored 99.68 per cent on billing accuracy on the 346,249 bills issued, a slight decrease from the shorter period reported in 2014, but still well above the required industry target of 98 per cent of all bills being accurate.
• It remains above the industry target for answering calls on time, despite an 11 per cent increase in call volume. Customer Service Representatives responded to 57,412 calls in 2015. Calls increased primarily due to external factors such as regulatory changes and loss of power supply from the provincial transmission system.
• Ideally, customer concerns and issues are resolved the first time the customer contacts the utility. In 2015, 99.13 per cent of eligible contacts were answered without having to transfer to another staff member. This is an improvement over the 2014 results. 

Operational effectiveness:

• In 2015, the average length of power outages was 0.93 hours – just under 56 minutes. This is well below the distributor target of 2.03 hours, and well below the 2.3 hour combined average of the previous four years.
• The average number of times that power to a customer was interrupted was 0.91 – an increase from last year, but below prior reporting years, and well below the distributor target of 1.41 times. When a switch on a main feed failed in the summer of 2015, it interrupted power to thousands of customers. This single occurrence increased the average number of times that customers lost their electricity from a frequency of 0.67 to 0.91.
• Over the 2011-2015 period, Kingston Hydro’s total cost per customer of providing electricity distribution services increased 4.4 per cent, an average increase of 1.1 per cent, per year. The per-customer cost for 2015 is $522 per customer, a 4.2 per cent increase from 2014, approximating the industry average of 3.9 per cent.

Public policy responsiveness:

Results published by the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) indicate that, during 2015, Kingston Hydro achieved 4.4 GWh of long-term annual savings, or 12.9 per cent of its 34.5 GWh year 2020 savings target.

View the scorecard in its full form at Kingston Hydro Rates and Regulatory Review.