Essex Powerlines Corporation

New residential/small business services connected on time

91.02% (2023)

The utility must connect new service for the customer within five business days, 90 % of the time, unless the customer agrees to a later date. This timeline depends on the customer meeting specific requirements ahead of time (such as no electrical safety concerns in the building, customer's payment information complete, etc.)

Scheduled appointments met on time

97.06% (2023)

For appointments during the utility's regular business hours, the utility must offer a window of time that is not more than four hours long, and must arrive within  that window, 90 % of the time. 

Telephone calls answered on time

81.05% (2023)

During regular call centre hours, the utility's call centre staff must answer within 30 seconds of receiving the call directly or having the call transferred to them, 65 % of the time

Billing accuracy

99.9% (2023)

An important part of business is ensuring that customer's bills are accurate. The utility must report on its success at issuing accurate bills to its customers.

More information about billing accuracy

Complaints

0.06 (2023)

This metric measures the number of complaints the Ontario Energy Board received from customers about matters within our authority. Complaints made directly to the utility are not reported here. We measure this per 1000 customers so utilities that serve much larger or smaller populations can be compared against each other. 

Average number of hours power to a customer was interrupted

2.47539h (2023)

An important feature of a reliable distribution system is recovering from power outages as quickly as possible. The utility must track the average length of time, in hours, that its customers have experienced a power outage over the past year. 

Average number of times power to a customer was interrupted

1.06536 (2023)

Another important feature of a reliable distribution system is reducing the frequency of  power outages. Utilities must also track the number of times their customers experienced a power outage during the past year.

More information about interruption frequency

Efficiency rating

1 (2023)

The utility must manage its costs successfully in order to help assure its customers they are receiving value for the cost of the service they receive. Utilities' total costs are evaluated to produce a single efficiency ranking. This is divided into five groups based on how big the difference is between each utility's actual and predicted costs. Distributors whose actual costs are lower than their predicted costs are considered more efficient.

• 1 = Actual costs are 25% or more below predicted costs
• 2 = Actual costs are 10% to 25% below predicted costs
• 3 = Actual costs are within +/- 10% of predicted costs
• 4 = Actual costs are 10% to 25% above predicted costs
• 5 = Actual costs are 25% or more above predicted costs

Cost per customer

$714 (2023)

A simple measure that can be used as a comparison with other utilities is the utility's total cost per customer. 

Total cost is a sum of all the costs incurred by the utility to provide service to its customers. The amount is then divided by the utility's total number of customers. This amount does not represent how much customers pay for their utility services.

More information about Cost per Customer