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IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING FRAUDULENT PHISHING EMAILS

The Ontario Energy Board is aware of the circulation of phishing emails using OEB employee names and titles. Bad actors are attempting to engage Ontario residents and OEB licensed entities.

Please be cautious of emails posing as OEB staff. Safeguard your operations by exercising vigilance. Confirm the sender’s email address is from @oeb.ca, be suspicious of unexpected messages from OEB executives and those which may contain unusual requests, including to contact the sender by their personal email.

Be aware that OEB does not engage in direct consumer outreach unless the consumer engages OEB first. Our dedicated webpage, oeb.ca/scams, may be shared with consumers for tips and information to avoid fraud. In addition, CTV News is warning consumers in Pembroke of a scam.

The OEB has posted amendments to Rules 28 and 32 of the Rules of Practice and Procedure that provide greater clarity regarding the OEB’s general approach to establishing and amending issues lists for a proceeding.

The Province of Ontario has recently appointed Carla Carmichael to the OEB’s Board of Directors. Ms. Carmichael is a senior leader with more than 30 years of experience in financial, commercial and strategic risk management, as well as infrastructure project planning and execution. She brings to the Board significant energy industry expertise including a strong focus on nuclear finance, rate regulation and projects, which she gained while working at Ontario Power Generation for more than 14 years. She currently serves as a council member on the Council for Clean and Reliable Energy and on the Board of Governors for Ontario Tech University. With the addition of Ms. Carmichael, the Board will continue its work to support the OEB through the energy transition, to strengthen public trust and provide strong leadership and good governance.

As part of its ongoing Reliability and Power Quality Review consultations, the OEB is providing for new voluntary reporting by distributors on reliability data at the distribution feeder level. The OEB expects this information will be supportive in building customer awareness and understanding about the reliability of their distributor’s services.

The OEB has issued a Notice of Proposal to amend the Distribution System Code. The amendment is intended to enable electricity distributors to offer flexible hosting capacity arrangements. We invite stakeholders to provide feedback to the proposal by February 13, 2024.

The OEB has posted Price Comparison templates for Natural Gas Contracts for Utilities Kingston valid from February 1, 2024.

The OEB has released an updated variance settlement factor that is to be used by electricity distributors to calculate a one-time credit or charge for consumers who choose to stop purchasing electricity through the Regulated Price Plan. This factor is called the "Final RPP Variance Settlement Factor" and is updated on the OEB website monthly.

The Market Surveillance Panel has submitted to the OEB its State of the Market Report 2022 on Ontario's wholesale electricity market.

The Cyber Security Advisory Committee, an industry-led committee consisting of representatives of Ontario's electricity utilities, has prepared version 1.1 of the Ontario Cyber Security Framework (OCSF) and the OEB has made it available online. It addresses third-party supply chain risks by aligning with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), while enhancing the evaluation and sustainment of a cyber security program by providing illustrative examples based on version 2.1 of the Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (C2M2).

The OEB has accepted an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance (AVC) from Wellington North Power Inc., an electricity distributor. The AVC responds to non-compliance with the requirement to implement Green Button in Ontario by November 1, 2023.