What Entegrus actually does (and why your bill says "Entegrus" at the top)
Ontario's electricity market is structured very differently from Alberta's. Entegrus wears two hats at once: it is the distributor that owns the poles, overhead and underground lines, transformers, substations and meters across Kitchener, Waterloo, Wilmot, Woolwich and Wellesley, AND it is your default supplier under Ontario's Standard Supply Service (SSS) rules. The bill that arrives at your home in Kitchener, Uptown Waterloo, New Hamburg, Elmira or Linwood covers both jobs.
The per-kWh rate Entegrus 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, and signing one does not change the delivery, regulatory or Global Adjustment lines on your bill, only the commodity portion.
- Owns the wires, transformers, smart meters across 5 municipalities
- Restores power after outages (24/7 dispatch)
- Sends the monthly bill at the OEB's RPP rate
- Fixed by address: every SW Ontario corridor property is served by Entegrus
- Replaces the commodity portion of the bill only
- Door-to-door sales banned (ECPA 2010)
- Delivery + Global Adjustment + regulatory unchanged
- Entegrus still owns the wires and meter
Unlike most Ontario LDCs, Entegrus is not 100 % municipally owned. Corix District Energy Holdings LP, a private utility investor, holds a minority stake alongside the Municipality of Chatham-Kent and the City of St. Thomas. The OEB regulates Entegrus on identical terms to fully municipal LDCs, but the ownership structure occasionally surfaces in rate-application interventions over governance and capital allocation.
Where Entegrus delivers power
In plain words: Entegrus serves the entire Municipality of Chatham-Kent plus the City of St. Thomas, Strathroy-Caradoc (Strathroy, Mount Brydges), Parkhill, Dutton and Newbury. The territory forms a corridor across southwestern Ontario; surrounding rural addresses belong to Hydro One Networks.
- •Chatham-Kent: Chatham, Wallaceburg, Tilbury, Blenheim, Ridgetown
- •St. Thomas (Elgin County)
- •Strathroy-Caradoc: Strathroy, Mount Brydges (Middlesex)
- •Parkhill (North Middlesex)
- •Dutton (Dutton-Dunwich) and Newbury (Elgin / Middlesex)
- •Windsor + Tecumseh → ENWIN Utilities
- •Sarnia, Petrolia, Watford, Oil Springs → Bluewater Power
- •London → London Hydro
- •Rural Chatham-Kent, Elgin, Middlesex outside towns → Hydro One Networks
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 Entegrus'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 Entegrus invoice. Unlike Alberta, where the commodity is billed separately by your retailer, in Ontario almost every household sees a single integrated bill where Entegrus 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, Tiered or Ultra-Low Overnight.
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.
The cost of moving electricity from the IESO-controlled grid through Entegrus'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 and the Wholesale Market Service Rate. 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.
Entegrus's delivery rate is approved by the OEB through periodic rate applications. Rates are filed publicly on the OEB's eFiling portal and can be examined line by line by any customer or consumer advocate. Because Entegrus also operates Entegrus Energy Services in unregulated markets (under the parent Entegrus Inc.), the OEB applies strict affiliate-transactions rules to ensure regulated and unregulated cost flows stay separate.
A practical implication: if a licensed retailer offers a low fixed per-kWh rate, you will still pay the same Entegrus delivery and regulatory charges, the same Global Adjustment, the same HST. Switching retailers changes the commodity portion of your bill; switching never changes Entegrus'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: two separate numbers
Entegrus runs a dedicated outage hotline (226-896-2200) separately from its general customer care number (226-896-1010). Outages are the only thing you call the first number for; the second handles billing, account changes, moves, new connections and conservation programmes.
Outages, downed wires, electrical emergencies. For a downed live wire, call 911 first.
Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (24/7 for outage reporting)
320 Queen Street
P.O. Box 70
Chatham, ON N7M 5K2
1-866-804-7325 (outage reporting any time, customer service Mon-Fri 8:30-16:30)
Outage map + report-an-issue form on entegrus.com
For non-urgent questions you can also use Entegrus's online tools: the outage centre and the customer portal on https://www.entegrus.com. As Ontario's seventh-largest LDC, Entegrus processes hundreds of thousands of customer interactions a year and its scorecard performance is reported annually to the OEB.
Report a power outage
If your power is out, the fastest path is to call 1-866-804-7325. Crews are dispatched 24/7. Active outages and restoration estimates are published on the outage centre, which covers all Entegrus communities.
Call 1-866-804-7325 or check the outage centre online. Have your address and account number ready.
The system pinpoints which feeder, transformer or substation is affected and assigns a crew or pole patrol.
Faults in central Chatham or St. Thomas often clear within an hour; rural-edge faults on long feeders to Newbury or Parkhill can take significantly longer.
Power is verified at the smart meter. Reset clocks, check freezer contents, and report any damage right away via Entegrus's claims process.
Reliability in plain words
Entegrus reports its reliability performance to the OEB every year in its public scorecard. The two headline metrics are SAIDI (average hours a customer was off in a year) and SAIFI (average number of interruptions per customer per year). The corridor footprint means Entegrus tends to face longer rural feeders than urban-only LDCs of similar customer count. The full year-by-year scorecard is on the OEB's distributor-scorecard registry.
Planned outages for maintenance are normally posted at least 48 hours in advance on the outage centre. If you depend on medical equipment, register with Entegrus's priority-notification programme so you are flagged before any planned interruption.
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 Entegrus. Start at https://www.entegrus.com or call 1-866-804-7325. Routine residential connections target the OEB's 5-business-day standard once all conditions are met.
The civic address and legal description of the lot inside one of Entegrus's five municipalities.
A sketch showing where you want the meter, service entrance and run-back to the pole or pad-mounted transformer.
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. Entegrus cannot energise until ESA clears it.
For routine residential connections once all conditions are met. Complex builds or service upgrades that require civil work can run several months.
Fixed component + per-metre charge above the contribution threshold defined in Entegrus'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 (TOU, Tiered or ULO) at any time by contacting Entegrus. If you sign with a licensed retailer later, the retailer registers their contract with Entegrus and the commodity rate is replaced on your next bill cycle.
Moving home, transferring or closing a service
In Entegrus's service area, the move-in / move-out conversation starts with Entegrus directly, not with a separate retailer. Because Entegrus is the default supplier, it closes the old billing account, sets up the new one, and triggers the final meter read. Most move requests need at least 1 to 2 business days of notice; 5 is safer for end-of-month moves.
Call 1-866-804-7325 (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 and university September turnover.
On the move-out date, Entegrus records the final reading remotely from the smart meter; no in-person visit required.
Entegrus 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 Entegrus if you want to change it at the new address.
Opening a fresh account is required at the new LDC. Common destinations from Entegrus territory include ENWIN Utilities (Windsor), Bluewater Power (Sarnia), London Hydro and Hydro One Networks (rural).
Meters, meter reading and accuracy
Entegrus owns the meter at your address. Since the province-wide smart-meter rollout was completed in 2010-2011, virtually every Chatham-Kent + St. Thomas 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 SW Ontario corridor residential address. Consumption reports back to Entegrus automatically; no action from you, no estimated bills.
Entegrus 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 Entegrus Powerlines?
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 Entegrus 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 Entegrus. The claim is evaluated on negligence.
- +Equipment failure (transformer, 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 Chatham-Kent + St. Thomas 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.
Regulator and complaint escalation
If you cannot resolve something directly with Entegrus, there is 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 Entegrus's distribution tariff and reviews service-quality reporting. Also runs the OEB Consumer Protection Office for individual disputes.
Administers Ontario Regulation 22/04, audits Entegrus's distribution-asset safety practices and tracks the Serious Electrical Incident Index. Issues electrical permits for in-house wiring.
Most issues resolve here. Phone 1-866-804-7325 (Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.) or use the My Account portal.
If the front line cannot fix it, request a written decision. 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.