What Burlington Hydro actually does (and why your bill says "Burlington Hydro" at the top)
Ontario's electricity market is structured very differently from Alberta's, and a municipal LDC like Burlington Hydro is the clearest example of why. Burlington Hydro wears two hats at once: it is the distributor that owns the poles, transformers, substations and smart meters across the City of Burlington, AND it is your default supplier under Ontario's Standard Supply Service (SSS) rules. The bill that arrives at your home covers both jobs, and on top of that it also collects the water charge on behalf of Halton Region.
The per-kWh rate Burlington Hydro charges most residential and small-business customers is set by the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) twice a year in its Regulated Price Plan (RPP), with three structures to choose from: Time-of-Use, Tiered or Ultra-Low Overnight. Long-term fixed-rate retailer contracts exist but are a niche market in Ontario, and signing one does not change the delivery, regulatory or Global Adjustment lines on your bill, only the commodity portion. The wires that bring electricity to your Burlington address belong to Burlington Hydro regardless.
- Owns 1,600 km of distribution line and 32 substations
- Restores power after outages (24/7 dispatch)
- Sends the monthly bill at the OEB's RPP rate
- Also collects the water charge on behalf of Halton Region
- Replaces the commodity portion of the bill only
- Door-to-door sales banned (ECPA 2010)
- Delivery + Global Adjustment + regulatory unchanged
- Burlington Hydro still owns the wires and meter
Your Burlington Hydro invoice is bi-monthly, not monthly, and it includes a separate line for water billed on behalf of Halton Region. If your bill seems higher than expected, check whether you're comparing one month against a two-month cycle. The electricity portion alone is still on the standard OEB tariff.
Where Burlington Hydro delivers power
In plain words: if you live or run a business inside the City of Burlington, Burlington Hydro is your distributor. The boundary follows the City of Burlington's municipal limits exactly, from Aldershot in the west to the Oakville border in the east, and from Lake Ontario north into the rural areas above Dundas Street.
- •Downtown Burlington and the lakefront
- •Aldershot, Tyandaga, Headon Forest, Millcroft, Alton Village
- •Rural Burlington above Dundas Street (Lowville, Mount Nemo)
- •Every residential, commercial and industrial address inside the City of Burlington boundary
- •Oakville → Oakville Hydro
- •Hamilton, Mississauga, Brampton → Alectra Utilities
- •Milton → Milton Hydro
- •Halton Hills (Georgetown, Acton) → Halton Hills Hydro
Not sure which one applies to your address? Check your most recent electricity bill: the distributor's name and OEB licence number are printed at the top of the first page.
How Burlington Hydro's charges appear on your bill
An Ontario electricity bill is broken into a handful of distinct line items, all of which appear on the same Burlington Hydro invoice (plus a water section billed for Halton Region). Unlike Alberta, where the commodity is billed separately by your retailer, in Ontario almost every household sees a single integrated bill where Burlington Hydro acts as both the wires company and the OEB-default supplier.
The per-kWh rate set by the OEB twice a year in the Regulated Price Plan. You pick one of three structures: Time-of-Use (peak/mid/off-peak), Tiered (low- and high-block) or Ultra-Low Overnight (for EV owners).
Funds the difference between the market price and the long-term contracts the IESO signed for nuclear, hydro, wind, solar and conservation. RPP customers see this rolled into the commodity rate; bigger customers see it as its own line.
The cost of moving electricity from the IESO-controlled grid through Burlington Hydro's wires to your meter. Includes a fixed monthly service charge plus a per-kWh distribution rate set by the OEB.
Small line covering OEB programs, the Wholesale Market Service Rate and a few other system-wide charges. Set by the OEB and applied uniformly across Ontario LDCs.
A provincial credit that reduces the pre-tax subtotal by a percentage set by the government (currently around 13 %). Applied automatically to eligible residential, farm and small-business accounts.
The 13 % federal-provincial sales tax applied to the post-rebate subtotal. Cannot be avoided; appears at the bottom of the bill.
Burlington Hydro's delivery rate is set by the OEB under the standard incentive rate-setting framework, with periodic rate applications filed publicly on the OEB's eFiling portal. The framework caps year-over-year increases against inflation and productivity targets, with limited "capital tracker" top-ups for specific approved projects such as substation renewal and feeder undergrounding.
A practical implication: if a licensed retailer offers a low fixed per-kWh rate, you'll still pay the same Burlington Hydro delivery and regulatory charges, the same Global Adjustment, the same HST. Switching retailers changes the commodity portion of your bill; switching never changes Burlington Hydro's portion.
Peak (4-7pm), mid-peak, off-peak. Best for households that can shift heavy use to evenings and weekends.
A low block for the first ~600 kWh per month (residential), a higher block above. Best for steady, modest users.
Very cheap from 11pm to 7am, much more expensive 4-9pm. Best for EV owners or anyone who can charge overnight.
Contact details: outage line + customer service
Burlington Hydro uses two distinct phone numbers: a dedicated 24/7 outage reporting line, and a separate business-hours number for billing, moves, account changes and new connections.
Outages, downed wires, network emergencies. For a downed live wire, call 911 first.
Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (general enquiries; outage line 24/7)
1340 Brant Street
Burlington, ON L7R 3Z7
Available via the contact form for connections, layouts and inspections
My Account at burlingtonhydro.com
For non-urgent questions you can also use Burlington Hydro's online tools: the live outage portal and the My Account portal at https://www.burlingtonhydro.com.
Report a power outage
If your power is out, the fastest path is to call 1-877-310-4937 (24/7) or report it on the outage portal. Live restoration estimates, cause and impacted-customer counts are published on the portal and updated during major events.
Call 1-877-310-4937 or use the outage portal. Have your address and account number ready.
The system pinpoints the affected feeder, substation or transformer and assigns the appropriate Burlington Hydro crew.
Estimated restoration time appears on the live outage portal. Single faults: usually minutes to under an hour. Storm-wide events: longer.
Power is verified at the smart meter. Reset clocks, check freezer contents, and report any damage right away via Burlington Hydro's claims form.
Burlington Hydro reports its reliability performance to the OEB every year in its public scorecard, with headline metrics SAIDI (average hours a customer was off per year) and SAIFI (average interruptions per customer per year). Burlington Hydro received the 2024 Customer Service Excellence Award at the EDA Awards Gala, an industry-wide recognition of its customer-service track record.
Planned outages for maintenance are normally posted at least 48 hours in advance, by mail or notice to affected addresses and on the outage portal. If you depend on medical equipment, register with Burlington Hydro's medical-needs program so you receive priority notification.
New connection or service upgrade
For a new build, a service upgrade (e.g. moving from 100 A to 200 A for an EV charger or heat pump), a temporary construction service, or any work that requires changes to the physical wires or meter, you deal with Burlington Hydro. Start at https://www.burlingtonhydro.com or call 905-332-1851. The engineering team handles new builds, layout reviews and capacity assessments.
The civic address and the legal description of the lot inside the City of Burlington.
A sketch showing where you want the meter, service entrance, and run-back to the pole or underground vault.
The amperage (100 A, 200 A, 400 A…) and voltage you need, signed off by your Master Electrician.
An Electrical Safety Authority permit and ESA sign-off once the in-house wiring is done. Burlington Hydro cannot energise until ESA clears it.
For routine residential connections once all conditions are met. Complex builds or service upgrades requiring civil work can run several months.
Fixed component + per-metre charge above the contribution threshold defined in Burlington Hydro's Conditions of Service.
Once the wires are in, your account opens automatically under Standard Supply Service at the OEB's Regulated Price Plan rate. You can switch your RPP structure (Time-of-Use, Tiered or Ultra-Low Overnight) at any time by contacting Burlington Hydro. If you sign with a licensed retailer later, the retailer registers their contract with Burlington Hydro and the commodity rate is replaced on your next bill cycle.
Moving home, transferring or closing a service
In Burlington the move-in / move-out conversation starts with Burlington Hydro directly, not with a separate retailer. Because Burlington Hydro is the default supplier, it closes the old billing account, sets up the new one, and triggers the final meter read. If you have a licensed retailer contract you also notify the retailer separately so they can transfer or cancel their commodity supply. Most move requests need at least 1 to 2 business days of notice; 5 is safer for end-of-month moves.
Call 905-332-1851 (or use My Account online). Give them the move date and your new address.
1 to 2 business days minimum; allow 5 for month-end moves. Same-day service is rare.
On the move-out date, Burlington Hydro records the final reading remotely from the smart meter; no in-person visit required.
Burlington Hydro issues a closing bill for the period up to the move-out date. The new address bill starts under a fresh account.
Administrative transfer only. No physical work, no service interruption. Your RPP structure (TOU, Tiered, ULO) carries over by default; ask Burlington Hydro if you want to change it at the new address.
Opening a fresh account is required at the new LDC. Common destinations from Burlington include Oakville Hydro, Milton Hydro, and Alectra Utilities for Hamilton or Mississauga.
Meters, meter reading and accuracy
Burlington Hydro owns the meter at your address. Since the province-wide smart-meter rollout was completed in 2010-2011, virtually every Burlington residential and small-business address is equipped with a smart meter that supports the OEB's Time-of-Use pricing structure. The meter is the basis for both the consumption side of your bill and the choice between TOU, Tiered or Ultra-Low Overnight RPP structures.
Every Burlington residential address. Consumption reports back to Burlington Hydro on its own; no action from you, no estimated bills.
Burlington Hydro pulls the meter and tests it on a calibrated bench against Measurement Canada's tolerance.
Download your hour-by-hour consumption via My Account or pipe it directly into an authorised third-party energy app.
If the meter reads outside Measurement Canada's tolerance (typically ±2 %), the test is free and you get a billing adjustment back to the date the fault is presumed to have started. If the meter passes, the test fee is charged to you at the OEB-approved tariff rate.
What do you need to do with Burlington Hydro?
Pick an action. The tool shows the right phone, the right link, and what to expect. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Note: under AUC Rule 002, Alberta distributors are not required to pay automatic compensation for outages. Damage claims are evaluated case-by-case on negligence.
Compensation and damage claims: the honest version
Ontario has no automatic, statutory compensation scheme for individual customers affected by a power outage. Unlike the UK's Ofgem Guaranteed Standards, the OEB's role is to require Burlington Hydro to report its reliability performance (SAIDI, SAIFI) every year in its public scorecard. Penalties for under-performance flow from the regulator to the distributor; they do not arrive in your mailbox as a credit.
If your fridge or freezer contents spoiled, an appliance was damaged by a voltage surge, or you incurred a clear loss during an outage, you can file a damage claim with Burlington Hydro. The claim is evaluated on negligence.
- +Equipment failure (transformer, vault, network switch)
- +Crew error during work on the network
- +Switching incident causing voltage spike
- +Unplanned, distributor-caused service interruption
- ×Severe weather (lightning, wind, ice storms)
- ×Wildlife contact (squirrels, raccoons on lines)
- ×Third-party contact (vehicle hits pole, dig-in)
- ×Planned outages notified in advance
Most Burlington home insurance policies cover food spoilage and surge damage at a low excess. If your loss is meaningful, the insurance route is usually faster than a denied utility claim. Keep dated receipts and photos either way. They're the only basis on which any claim can be evaluated.
Regulator and complaint escalation
If you can't resolve something directly with Burlington Hydro, there's a clear escalation ladder in Ontario. The Ontario Energy Board sits at the top as both the economic regulator and the body that handles consumer complaints; the Electrical Safety Authority covers physical-safety issues.
Sets the Regulated Price Plan, approves Burlington Hydro's distribution tariff, oversees the rate framework and reviews service-quality reporting (scorecards). Also runs the OEB Consumer Protection Office for individual disputes.
Administers Ontario Regulation 22/04, audits Burlington Hydro's distribution-asset safety practices and tracks the Serious Electrical Incident Index. Issues electrical permits for in-house wiring.
Most issues resolve here. Phone 905-332-1851 (Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.) or use the My Account portal.
If the front line can't fix it, request a written decision in writing. This creates the paper trail needed for the next step.
The OEB investigates complaints involving Ontario LDCs, retailers and unit sub-meter providers. The service is free.
Last resort. For tariff or service-quality issues you can intervene as a registered intervenor in a rate proceeding. For damage claims that are denied, civil court is the final route.