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The OEB has issued a letter providing guidance regarding the anticipated Code amendments that will be required when the IESO’s Market Rule amendments related to its Market Renewal Program take effect. The intent is to assist electricity distributors in understanding the type and scope of those Code changes as they prepare for Market Renewal.

The OEB has issued a letter regarding the filing of IESO System Impact Assessment (SIA) reports in electricity leave to construct applications. Effective April 4, 2024, applicants are no longer required to include SIA appendices in order to meet the criteria outlined in Chapter 4 of the OEB’s Filing Requirements for Electricity Transmission Applications.

The OEB has issued a letter to natural gas distributors regarding minor revisions that it has made to the standard conditions of approval typically attached to the OEB’s decisions approving natural gas leave to construct applications. 

The OEB has issued the Non-Wires Solutions Guidelines for Electricity Distributors (NWS Guidelines). The NWS Guidelines replace the Conservation and Demand Management (CDM) Guidelines and provide OEB guidance on the role of non-wires solutions for rate-regulated electricity distributors. The change in name reflects the fact that non-wires solutions to address system needs can encompass a broader range of solutions than traditional conservation and demand management, including, but not limited to, third-party distributed energy resources such as energy storage and distributed generation.

As part of its ongoing Reliability and Power Quality Review consultation, the OEB has developed a Guide to Addressing Electricity Distribution Power Quality Issues. The Guide is intended to enhance transparency and consistency by fostering a uniform approach for addressing power quality issues across Ontario.

The OEB has published materials from its February 2024 Webinar and Q&A Session on OEB’s Accounting Order (003-2023) for the Establishment of a Deferral Account to Record Incremental Cloud Computing Arrangement Implementation Costs. The materials include responses to questions received during the session.

The OEB has issued its response to The Very Small Utilities Working Group Report filed by OEB staff on February 28, 2024. The report contained recommendations and suggestions regarding filing requirements, the cost of service process, alternative regulatory approaches for very small utilities, and a process for monitoring the impact of regulatory approaches on these utilities.

The OEB has issued a notice regarding amendments to the Natural Gas Reporting and Record Keeping Requirements (RRR) Rule for Gas Utilities (Natural Gas RRR Rule). The notice also advises natural gas utilities of an update to the RRR Filing Portal regarding cloud computing costs.

The OEB has issued a letter to electricity licensees and licensed natural gas marketers which includes a summary of changes to the Reporting and Record-keeping Requirements (RRR) for the 2024 filing and updates to RRR documentation. The letter also highlights new RRR changes expected for the April 2025 filing and beyond for electricity distributors, including interruption sub-cause codes and voluntary feeder-level reliability reporting.

The OEB has issued the final Notice of Amendments to the Distribution System Code. The amendments are intended to enable electricity distributors to offer flexible hosting capacity arrangements.