page_title: Hydro One
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Hydro One / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Hydro One power lines in Woodbridge, Ontario Canada. Taken between Hwy 27 and Huntington Rd on Langstaff Rd facing south towards hwy 7.
context_page_description: Hydro One Limited is an electricity transmission and distribution utility serving the Canadian province of Ontario. Hydro One traces its history to the early 20th century and the establishment of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario. In October 1998, the provincial legislature passed the Energy Competition Act which restructured Ontario Hydro into separate entities responsible for electrical generation, transmission/delivery, and price management with a final goal of total privatization.
  Hydro One was established at this time as a corporation under the Business Corporations Act with the Government of Ontario as sole shareholder, making it a Crown corporation. Following its initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2015, the Government of Ontario began selling shares to the public with a final goal of 60% of the company being held by private investors. A report released on 2 December 2015 by the Auditor General of Ontario raised concern with the sale, indicating that power outages are increasing and that Hydro One's equipment is aging and "at very high risk of failing". The estimated cost of necessary repairs was $4.472 billion.
context_section_description: Hydro One was created out of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario (HEPC or Ontario Hydro), which was established in 1906 by the provincial Power Commission Act to build transmission lines to supply municipal utilities with electricity generated by private companies already operating at Niagara Falls. The first chairman was Adam Beck, minister without portfolio in the provincial government of Sir James P. Whitney. Beck had been a prominent advocate of a publicly owned electricity grid.
  The commission's initial responsibility was to build transmission lines, in order to supply municipal utilities with power.  The power that was being transferred by HEPC was already being generated at Niagara Falls by private companies. Also during 1906, the company appointed Adam Beck as chairman.  A year later, Beck and his colleague William Peyton Hubbard fought for the public ownership of the company. Later in 1908, HEPC purchased power from Niagara Falls and sought to transmit this power over its own lines, which at the time, had not been established. The company continued its steady growth for the next few years. and by 1914 HEPC built its first owned power generating station located on the Severn River.
  In the early 1920s, HEPC expanded further and became an electricity distributor itself. The company now transmitted to rural areas in addition to  municipal utilities. In 1922 the company's first unit of the Chippawa hydroelectric development on the Niagara River began service. Upon the unit's completion in 1925, it was the largest generating station in the world.
  This HEPC had bought the generation and transmission assets of the Electrical Development Corporation, which was the last remaining private power company. In 1926, HEPC entered into a long-term contract with Gatineau Power Company, located in Quebec. These contracts were needed to accommodate a growing demand for power and electricity. However, these same contracts were to become a source of controversy during the Great Depression when there was an overcapacity in the system. The development of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers was stalled by jurisdictional complications. The development of the rivers would have allowed access to a preferred source of power. In 1939 the Quebec contracts were reinstated and the development of the rivers were continued.
  In the late 1940s and early 1950s HEPC took a great leap forward with development of hydro-electric potential along the St. Lawrence River. During the mid-1950s HEPC joined all its power stations and transmission systems into one network in order to become more efficient and flexible.  Also during the 1950s, hydro-electric development was supplemented by the construction of thermal coal-fired power stations in Toronto. And by the end of the 1950s HEPC began construction of Canada's first extra-high voltage (500 000 volts) transmission lines. This brought power from northern Ontario to demand in southern Ontario. However, these transmission lines would only come into service in 1967. And by the start of the 1970s all of Ontario's power systems had merged, creating a province wide grid.
  In 1974, the Power Corporation Act reorganized the system as a crown corporation called "Ontario Hydro", the name by which it was most usually known.
  In 1998, the Progressive Conservative Party (PC) government of Mike Harris passed the Energy Competition Act which authorized the establishment of a market in electricity. In April 1999, Ontario Hydro was re-organized into five successor companies: Ontario Power Generation, the Ontario Hydro Services Company (later renamed Hydro One), the Independent Electricity Market Operator (later renamed the Independent Electricity System Operator), the Electrical Safety Authority, and Ontario Electricity Financial Corporation. The two commercial companies, Ontario Power Generation and Hydro One, were intended to operate as private businesses rather than as crown corporations.
  By 2001, Hydro One had acquired 88 municipal utilities. In December 2001 the provincial government announced its intention to 
caption: 500,000 volt (centre) and 230,000 volt (far left and right) transmission lines in the Greater Toronto Area, for which Hydro One is responsible.
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