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Electrical Service Upgrades and Your Utility in Ontario (2026): Hydro One, Alectra, Toronto Hydro, Elexicon and EPCOR, Who Owns What and How Long It Takes
Electrical & Lighting
The Utility Side of a Service Upgrade: Who Owns What, Who Books What, and Why Your Power Stays Off Until ESA Says So
Every service upgrade has three parties: you, your electrician and your local utility. You can fire the electrician. You cannot fire the utility, so it pays to know what it owns, what it charges and what it needs before it puts the power back. This page covers Hydro One, Alectra, Toronto Hydro, Elexicon, EPCOR and the small utilities, and what a long rural run changes.
The numbers
$0Hydro One, one upgrade disconnect a calendar year
$120Toronto Hydro, at the meter, regular hours
$65Alectra, at the meter, PowerStream rate zone
30 moverhead secondary in a Hydro One basic connection
| Utility | Disconnect and reconnect for an upgrade | After hours | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hydro One | $0 once a calendar year | not published | 10 days notice; anything beyond a basic connection is quoted |
| Toronto Hydro, at the meter | $120 | $400 | Upgrade work itself quoted per job |
| Toronto Hydro, at the pole | $300 | $820 | |
| Alectra, at the meter (PowerStream zone) | $65 | $185 | One free planned disconnect every 12 months |
| Alectra, at the pole (PowerStream zone) | $185 | $415 | Upgrades over 100 A go through its New Connections Portal |
| Elexicon, EPCOR, small utilities | no fee found published | Call and ask | |
| ESA notification, service change | $92 | $86 contractor fee, $92 minimum; $212 if a homeowner files |
October 2026 fees, before HST, from the utilities’ and ESA’s own pages. Alectra’s other rate zones publish their own schedules. None of these include the electrician’s work, which is on the panel upgrade cost page.
Why Ontario prices are all over the map: this is the one line on a service upgrade with a posted price, and the quotes still did not agree. Toronto Hydro’s own page says $120 to disconnect and reconnect at the meter in regular hours. The Toronto contractors we checked showed the same line at $300 to $1,000. Some fold in ESA, some the hours spent booking and waiting for the crew, some an after-hours call. None of that is wrong, but it is not the utility’s fee. Budget your utility’s posted charge plus a few hours of the electrician’s time, ask each contractor to show the utility fee as its own line, and get two or three quotes on the same written scope.
Who Owns What
The utility owns the line on the road, the transformer, and usually the overhead drop to your house, plus the meter itself. Under Hydro One’s conditions of service you own the meter base, which Hydro One now calls the meter-mounting device, the mast, the service entrance cable and everything inside. Hydro One’s conditions of service also put the supports for the service and the civil work, the trench and conduit, on the customer’s side.
That matters when something breaks. Ice pulls the mast off the wall? Your mast, your electrician, your insurance. The transformer at the road hums and fails? The utility’s. And the meter and its seal are the utility’s property: nobody pulls a meter or cuts a seal except the utility or someone it has authorized.
Where exactly the line between utility and customer sits on a buried service varies by utility and by the age of the installation. Ask yours before the trench quote, not after.
How the Sequence Runs
- Load calculation and scope. The licensed electrical contractor works out the new rating and writes the scope: overhead or underground, new meter base, mast, panel.
- ESA notification filed before work starts; the ESA permit page covers who files and what it costs.
- Upgrade request to the utility. Hydro One has an online service upgrade request and says it contacts you within 15 days. Alectra takes panel changes and upgrades above 100 A through its New Connections Portal.
- The utility checks its own equipment. If the transformer and the line can carry the bigger service, the job is a disconnect and reconnect. Alectra says an upgrade may not incur any charges from it if the existing infrastructure supports it. If not, the utility quotes the work, and Hydro One says a capital contribution may be required.
- The day of the work. Disconnect in the morning, new service installed.
- ESA connection authorization. Every utility we checked says the same thing: no reconnection until it receives ESA’s connection authorization.
- Reconnect, and ESA’s Certificate of Acceptance later, to whoever filed the notification.
On a simple overhead upgrade where the utility’s equipment is fine, most of the wait is the booking: Hydro One, for one, says it contacts you within 15 days of the request, and the work date is set after that. Where the utility has to change a transformer or a line, it is the utility’s schedule, and you will learn patience. On our own builds and renovations, the licensed electrical contractors we hire do this work and file the notification under their own licence.
Overhead, Underground and the Long Rural Run
In town most upgrades are overhead and simple. The drop is short, the transformer is shared with the neighbours, and the utility reconnects to a new mast.
The country is different. In Tiny Township and most of rural Simcoe County the utility is Hydro One, lanes are long, and the house can be 100 m or more from the road. A Hydro One basic connection includes up to 30 m of overhead secondary conductor for a service up to 200 A. Past that, the customer pays for the extra, and the same terms can apply to an increase in existing capacity. Ask who owns any poles on your own property. The rural lot utilities page covers the new-lot version, and the hydro connection cost page prices a new connection.
Two rural traps. First, if the service has been off six months or more, Hydro One needs an ESA inspection before it reconnects, which catches people buying a cottage that sat empty. Second, when the power is off the well pump is off, so for a rural house the work day is also a no-water day. Fill the bathtub.
Which Utility You Have
Your bill names it. In Simcoe County and around Georgian Bay it is mostly Hydro One in the townships, Alectra in Barrie, EPCOR in Collingwood, Newmarket-Tay Power in Midland and InnPower in Innisfil. Elexicon serves much of Durham Region, and its page says residential service is up to a maximum of 200 A per dwelling unit, so a 400 A plan there starts as a conversation, not a quote. EPCOR’s Collingwood net-metering paperwork books the work as a disconnect, inspect and reconnect (DIR) appointment; ask whether an upgrade is booked the same way. For the small utilities we found no published upgrade fee; call them, and ask for it in writing.
- Is there a charge to disconnect and reconnect for this upgrade, and is it free once a year?
- Can your transformer and line carry the new rating, or will you quote work on your side?
- How much notice do you need, and what is the earliest date?
- Where is the ownership line on my service, overhead or buried?
- Do you need anything from me besides ESA’s connection authorization?
Questions people ask
Does Hydro One charge to upgrade my service?
Hydro One does one disconnect and reconnect a calendar year for an upgrade at no charge, with 10 days notice. If its own equipment has to change, or you need more than a basic connection, it quotes the work and may ask for a capital contribution. It publishes no flat upgrade fee.
Who pays for the new meter base?
You do. The meter base is customer equipment, so it is on the electrician’s quote. The meter itself belongs to the utility.
Can my electrician turn the power back on himself?
Not on his own say-so. The utility reconnects after it receives ESA’s connection authorization. That is why the inspection timing matters on the day.
How long does a service upgrade take from start to finish?
For a plain overhead job with no utility changes, often a few weeks from the first call, most of it waiting for the utility’s booking, and most of one day without power. If the utility must change a transformer or a line, it takes as long as the utility takes.
Why did my contractor quote $600 for the utility when the utility charges $120?
The higher number often includes ESA’s fee and the contractor’s time to book and wait for both. Ask for the utility’s posted fee on its own line, then judge the rest as labour.
Know the rating before you call the utility
The service capacity calculator works out the load your house will carry after the heat pump, the charger or the hot tub, and the rating that fits it, so the first call to the utility asks for the right thing. If you already have quotes, the $99 review reads up to three and separates the utility’s fee from the electrician’s.
Sources and further reading
- Hydro One: service upgrade: how to request a service upgrade from Hydro One and what happens after the ESA notification is in.
- Alectra service requests: panel changes and service upgrades, the free planned disconnect, and the ESA connection authorization.
- Toronto Hydro service charges: the published disconnect and reconnect charges at the meter and at the pole.
