Energy board seeks clarity on PDI sale
Hydro customers would get longer call-centre hours
Hydro One will be expected to offer local jobs to all but four of the current line and forestry employees working for Peterborough Distribution Inc. (PDI) for at least a year after the planned sale goes ahead, says an application for approval of the sale filed to the Ontario Energy Board (OEB).
The OEB is the province’s electricity and natural gas regulator; it’s expected to consider an application to sell the municipally-owned electrical distribution system to Hydro One for $105 million.
A decision from the OEB is expected in August.
Hydro One expects it will need 13 line and forestry workers — while PDI currently has 17.
But those four workers aren’t expected to be jobless, as they will be “absorbed into vacancies within Hydro One,” the application states.
Yet the OEB may be looking deeper into this loss of four jobs. The regulator’s website shows a new document filed Tuesday that lays out 33 pages of detailed questions that the applicants will have to answer by Feb. 27.
The idea is to give the OEB clarity on a variety of details before it makes its decision.
The OEB wants to know from the applicants how reliability in the PDI service territory “will not be made worse or put at greater risk following the proposed net reduction of four local direct staff out of 17 positions.”
The OEB also wants clarity on what happens to those four workers if there are no vacancies for them within Hydro One.
The application before the OEB is a 500-page document that covers every aspect of the planned sale.
It even includes the agreement of purchase struck last July between the city, PDI and Hydro One.
The application states that the city shall receive $105 million for the distribution system — $4 million as a deposit, already paid to the city and being held in escrow, plus a further payment of $101 million once the deal closes.
The application also confirms that ratepayers will get a one per cent reduction in their rates in the first five years following a sale, plus a rate increase of less
than inflation in years six to 10.
The application also states that all support staff that currently work for the utility — back-office, customer service and finance staff, for instance — will keep their jobs with Hydro One.
A total of 43 of these workers — currently employed with PDI or Peterborough Utilities Services — will be “absorbed” by Hydro One, the document states.
The application also states that there’s expected to be longer call-centre hours under Hydro One ownership: the phones will be open on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. (which is 4 1/2 hours longer per weekday).
Service guarantees are also included in the deal: if Hydro One does not return a phone call within one business day, for example, the residential customer’s account is credited $75.