The electric utility of the future: insights on challenge and change in Ontario LDCs

The traditional role of electric utilities is diminishing in the face of technology, customer, financial, regulatory, and policy changes occurring in the industry. These changes will determine the future viability of local distribution companies [LDCs] in Ontario. A diverse collection of academic, industry, and government literature supports varying opinions of what the LDC of the future should look like. A historical overview and an institutional theory of organizational behaviour method frames the idea that technological innovation can break through the sector’s historically and culturally embedded resistance to change. A two-stage survey method is used to construct a dialogue between key players, and finds support for the above proposition from the expert judgements of LDC decision-makers and influencers. The new energy customer, empowered by new energy technologies, is a primary causal factor of the challenges in the sector, and also of the transformative change needed to create the LDC of the future.