4.1 Introduction

There is a great amount of infrastructure devoted to distributing electricity to the final consumer.

What is Distribution?

At some point along its journey from generation to customer, electricity will be “stepped down” or decreased from the high voltage at which it has travelled across transmission lines to lower voltages closer to what customers require. From here onward, we are within the local distribution grid. The distribution grid performs important functions that allow the safe and reliable delivery of electricity for use in homes, businesses, and institutions.

Reference Documents

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Local Distribution Company Tasks

A Local Distribution Company can be responsible for all these tasks.

• Plan: Review performance and analyze distribution asset reliability, project consumer demand growth, and develop capital and maintenance plans.

• Design: Apply utility engineering standards and project management rigour to projects and execute the capital and maintenance plans.

• Build: Bring engineering designs to construction and completion.

• Operate: 24/7 operation of distribution facilities.

• Maintain: Maintain and repair physical assets/infrastructure, such as transmission lines.

• Restore: Manage power outages and communicate with customers during such outages.

• Meter: Measure the customer’s consumption.

• Bill: Obtain all the usage information and bill the customer.

• Collect: Manage payment collection and disconnection for non-payment.

• Customer Care: Manage the ongoing relationship with customers.

Distribution Utilities

The distribution utility, or Local Distribution Company, is the entity responsible for the safe, reliable delivery of electricity to the final user.

Distribution utilities are diverse. In Ontario, for example, dozens of distribution utilities serve individual markets often consisting of a single municipality. Whereas in most of British Columbia, an integrated provincial utility performs the distribution function (along with generation and transmission).

The key distinguishing feature is that the distribution utility (or the larger utility playing that role) has a direct relationship with individual customers—connecting and maintaining their electricity supply, providing them with supplemental services, and issuing and collecting on customer bills.

Functions of the Distribution Utility

A Local Distribution Company’s role includes a number of functions.

System Operation

Distribution utilities operate the local grid, consisting in part of the overhead and underground wires that crisscross neighbourhoods, with a strong focus on safe and reliable delivery and on leveraging technology to ensure quick responses when outages occur.

System Planning, Maintenance and Expansion

Distribution utilities continuously assess grid maintenance and expansion requirements, driven by both population growth and electrification. The need for capital investment is carefully planned and balanced with the need for customer affordability.

Billing and Customer Service

Distribution utilities typically bill customers for all costs associated with their electricity and strive for service excellence. Payment for associated transmission and generation charges are passed along to the appropriate parties.

Enabling System Transformation

Distribution utilities are adapting to, and helping drive customer involvement in energy system transformation, by enabling such things as rooftop solar generation and electric vehicle charging.

Smart Grids and Microgrids

Through the use of telecommunications and digital devices, smart grids allow the collection of data from across the grid, for real-time analysis and action.

Smart grids provide an open operating environment into which many digital devices can be integrated, including customer-facing equipment such as smart meters, utility management, and other information systems and technology.

Smart grids help enable the integration of many sources of generation, including renewable resources such as solar and wind, and battery storage (potentially drawing on electric vehicles as a storage platform). They are able to deploy the best available resource to match the precise profile of demand at a given time. This can help to minimize the need for additional large and centralized generation and associated transmission facilities.

Smart grids also allow more localized management of the grid, and balancing of supply and demand, and can support automated and self-healing grid capability in response to reliability threats.

A microgrid is a local network that has sufficient decentralized electricity generation sources to generally meet its demand needs. They can therefore be disconnected from the wider grid to operate as standalone entities if this becomes necessary due to conditions such as weather, or preferable due to prevailing electricity prices. While largely self-sufficient, microgrids usually do maintain an interconnection to the wider grid.

Microgrids can also be used to provide backup support to the wider grid (by providing surplus electricity), thereby improving the security of supply.

Microgrids can be deployed as complete stand-alone entities where there is no feasible transmission connection to a centralized generation source, for example on islands or in remote areas.

Microgrids can effectively manage various sources of distributed or decentralized generation, especially from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. Battery storage can also be deployed within a microgrid. The costs of such systems are becoming increasingly competitive, making them more viable alternatives to the diesel-based generation that is commonly used in remote off-grid communities in Canada today.

While not yet widely developed in Canada, various utilities are implementing microgrids as pilot projects in diverse service territories to gain more real-world experience with their implementation.