Hydro Ottawa has energized the Piperville municipal transformer station, its first substation built with a lower-carbon design. The station provides 90 MW of power to southeast Ottawa while achieving a 12.3% reduction in embodied carbon compared to the Cambrian MTS baseline. This reduction comes from lower-carbon concrete, a more compact layout, and optimized engineering, eliminating 618 tonnes of CO2e before the station even goes live. The station also adds system redundancy for severe weather and supports future distributed energy resources like rooftop solar and battery storage. Hydro Ottawa plans to apply this design standard to all new substations, with several projects slated through 2030, aiming to meet rising electricity demand while cutting construction-related emissions.
