Hydro Ottawa Expansion

Q168: When will Hydro Ottawa officially announce that it is taking over the accounts of the remaining Hydro One customers in the City of Ottawa?
Before the end of 2015: 40%
In 2016: 20%
Not before the end of 2016: 40%
(Most, but not necessarily all, of the 45,000 Hydro One customers in the City of Ottawa must join Hydro Ottawa for this question to trigger)

Negotiations are currently taking place regarding the remaining customers of Hydro One (the provincial electricity distributor) who live in the City of Ottawa (see articles here and here).  The city would like those customers to join Hydro Ottawa, while Hydro One wants a substantial payment for transferring the customers.  These customers pay substantially more than similar Hydro Ottawa customers; they are relatively low-cost Hydro One customers, but would be relatively high-cost Hydro Ottawa customers.  Ottawa mayor Jim Watson has expressed optimism about the negotiations.  The partial Hydro One sale in the fall seems to be a soft deadline for the negotiations.

The most likely outcome is probably an agreement before the end of 2015.  The encouraging statements by the mayor, and the pressure created by the impending Hydro One sale, make this more likely.  If no agreement is reached by the end of 2015, there will probably be no agreement in 2016 at all, because of the partial Hydro One sale.