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th ei fp .c a Th e IF P -H al to n H ill s | T hu rs da y, S ep te m be r 26 ,2 01 9 | 14 From Modern to Contemporary to Traditional. Product & Design That Complement Your Life. 348 Guelph St. Georgetown (Behind YoYo's, next to Cooper Standard) www.kabinetpro.com 905-702-7719 Authorized Dealer for According to the Ontario Ener- gy Board's statistics, in 2018, resi- dents of Halton Hills experienced about twice as many outages as the rest of Halton Region. On average, residents spent about an hour and a half in the dark throughout the year. With about 23,000 customers in a 281 square-kilometre area, a big part of the reason Halton Hills spends more time in the dark has to do with the ratio of overhead and underground lines through- out the municipality. "The more overhead lines, the more susceptible to foreign inter- ference," Art Skidmore, president and CEO of Halton Hills Hydro, said. Unfortunately, converting overhead lines to underground isn't easy. In new developments, underground lines are laid along- side gas, sewer, and cable lines, but in established neighbourhoods it would be costly and disruptive. "We'd be digging up people's yards," Skidmore said. The leading cause of outages across the municipality, however, is faulty equipment. Utility infrastructure is run to failure, Skidmore said, and much of it comes with a 40 to 60-year li- fespan. When the municipality was amalgamated in the 1970s the ex- isting infrastructure was inherit- ed from Ontario Hydro. "If you change that on a proac- tive basis it's going to translate in- to increased rates," Skidmore said. In some cases, the utility com- pany replaces infrastructure that could cause significant outages, like no-longer-manufactured com- bination streetlight-transfer poles. "If one of those blows, residents will have a significant outage," Skidmore said. After next year, only seven pole-transfers will be employed in Halton Hills. Adverse weather was the sec- ond most common cause of outag- es in the region. Skidmore said during a recent lightning storm, one transformer was struck by lightning and the power surged to adjacent trans- formers, damaging four in total. Following weather, the third leading cause of outages in Halton Hills was tree contact, accounting for 14 outages in 2018. While trees are trimmed away from lines over a three-year cycle, taller trees can and do fall onto the lines causing outages. Collisions with poles were an- other contributing cause of outag- es. "They're often the longer ones to restore power," Jennifer Gor- don, project manager for the util- ity company, said. "If there's a ve- hicle involved there are police in- volved in the investigation." Vehicle collisions often cause enough damage to require poles to be completely replaced, prolong- ing outage lengths. "Outages are a part of our busi- ness," Skidmore said. "There's no way as a distribution company we can guarantee 100 per cent power. There are too many foreign inter- ference factors." However, 52 employees provide round-the-clock support for Hal- ton Hills Hydro's 9,100 hydro poles and 400 transformers. Right now, the utility is seeking customer input to prioritize in- vestments for the next five years. Residents can have their say on- line at haveyoursay.haltonhillshy- dro.com. NEWS DOES HALTON HILLS HAVE MORE POWER OUTAGES THAN THE REST OF HALTON? BRYAN MYERS bmyers@metroland.com QUESTION: DOES HALTON HILLS HAVE MORE POWER OUTAGES THAN THE REST OF HALTON? ANSWER: YES, WITH SIGNIFICANTLY MORE OVERHEAD POWER LINES THAN THE REST OF HALTON, MORE OUTAGES ARE LIKELY TO OCCUR. STORY BEHIND THE STORY: After seeing a number of outages reported on Halton Hills Hydro's Twitter account, reporter Bryan Myers, compared the rest of Halton's utility companies via the Ontario Energy Board. Alexandra Heck/Metroland While Halton Hills residents may see more outages than the rest of Halton, the reasoning has a lot to do with the ratio of overhead and underground lines in the municipality.