People searching for hydro companies or gas companies in Ontario usually want one of two things: to find out which utility serves an address, or to get consumption data out of that utility for a building they manage. Ontario makes the first harder than most provinces because electricity distribution is split among dozens of local distribution companies rather than one crown utility, and the second harder because each of those companies has its own portal.
This page is a reference for both. It explains how the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) structures the sector, lists the licensed electricity distributors by region, names the rate-regulated natural gas utilities, and covers how to get usage data from any of them, with links to the Green Button pages of the largest. Every regulatory statement links to the OEB or provincial page it comes from.
How Ontario's utilities are organized
The OEB licenses the companies in the sector. Its list of licensed companies explains that in the electricity sector distributors, transmitters, generators, retailers, wholesalers, unit sub-meter providers, the Independent Electricity System Operator and the Smart Metering Entity must all hold a licence, and that in the natural gas sector companies marketing gas to low-volume consumers must be licensed. The same data is published as a daily-updated XML file on the OEB's licensed market participants open data page. When we pulled that file in September 2026 it contained 60 issued electricity distributor licences and 28 unit sub-metering licences.
For a customer, four categories matter:
- Electricity distributors (local distribution companies, or LDCs). The OEB's electricity rates page puts it simply: electricity distribution utilities deliver electricity to your home or business and also issue your bill, unless you are a customer of a unit sub-metering provider. These are the companies people mean by hydro companies. Hydro One is the largest by territory; it describes its service area as approximately 75 per cent of the geographic area of Ontario and says it serves almost 1.5 million customers. The rest of the province is served by municipally or investor-owned LDCs, from Toronto Hydro and Alectra down to distributors with a few thousand customers.
- Natural gas distributors. The OEB sets rates for two natural gas utilities: Enbridge Gas (including the former Union Gas rate zones) and EPCOR Natural Gas Limited Partnership, which serves the Aylmer and South Bruce areas. The same page notes the OEB does not regulate rates for Kitchener Utilities or Utilities Kingston, the two municipally run gas systems.
- Unit sub-meter providers (USMPs). The OEB describes USMPs as companies that provide electricity metering and billing services to customers in multi-unit buildings such as condominiums and apartments, under contract to the building owner or condominium corporation. If your bill comes from a USMP, your usage data comes from the USMP, not the LDC.
- Energy retailers and gas marketers. These sell price contracts, not delivery. The OEB licenses them to set rules that protect consumers from unfair business practices, and notes that fewer than 1 in 10 customers in Ontario buy their electricity from an electricity retailer. Even with a retailer contract, the distributor still meters and bills you, so usage data comes from the distributor.
To find which distributor serves a specific address, the OEB publishes an interactive electricity and natural gas utilities service area map that can be searched by address or region and shows utility contact details.
Licensed electricity distributors by region
The table lists the electricity distributors with an issued licence in the OEB's licensed market participants file as of September 2026, grouped by region. The city is the head office recorded on the licence, not the service territory; many of these distributors serve several municipalities, so use the OEB service area map for boundaries.
| Region | Distributor (head office city on OEB licence) |
|---|---|
| Province-wide and remote | Hydro One Networks Inc. (Toronto); Hydro One Remote Communities Inc. (Markham) |
| Toronto and GTA | Toronto Hydro-Electric System Limited (Toronto); Alectra Utilities Corporation (Mississauga); Elexicon Energy Inc. (Ajax); Oshawa PUC Networks Inc. (Oshawa); Burlington Hydro Inc. (Burlington); Oakville Hydro Electricity Distribution Inc. (Oakville); Milton Hydro Distribution Inc. (Milton); Halton Hills Hydro Inc. (Acton); Newmarket-Tay Power Distribution Ltd. (Newmarket) |
| Central Ontario and Simcoe | InnPower Corporation (Innisfil); Orangeville Hydro Limited (Orangeville); Wasaga Distribution Inc. (Wasaga Beach); EPCOR Electricity Distribution Ontario Inc. (Collingwood); Lakeland Power Distribution Ltd. (Huntsville); Lakefront Utilities Inc. (Cobourg) |
| Hamilton, Niagara and Grand River | Grimsby Power Incorporated (Grimsby); Niagara Peninsula Energy Inc. (Niagara Falls); Niagara-on-the-Lake Hydro Inc. (Virgil); Welland Hydro-Electric System Corp. (Welland); Canadian Niagara Power Inc. (Fort Erie); GrandBridge Energy Inc. (Cambridge); Enova Power Corp. (Kitchener) |
| Southwestern Ontario | London Hydro Inc. (London); ENWIN Utilities Ltd. (Windsor); E.L.K. Energy Inc. (Windsor); Essex Powerlines Corporation (Oldcastle); Entegrus Powerlines Inc. (Chatham); Bluewater Power Distribution Corporation (Sarnia); ERTH Power Corporation (Ingersoll); Festival Hydro Inc. (Stratford); Tillsonburg Hydro Inc (Tillsonburg); Centre Wellington Hydro Ltd. (Fergus); Wellington North Power Inc (Mount Forest); Westario Power Inc. (Walkerton) |
| Eastern Ontario | Hydro Ottawa Limited (Ottawa); Kingston Hydro Corporation (Kingston); Cornwall Street Railway Light and Power Company Limited (Cornwall Electric); Hydro Hawkesbury Inc. (Hawkesbury); Hydro 2000 Inc. (Alfred); Cooperative Hydro Embrun Inc. (Embrun); Rideau St. Lawrence Distribution Inc. (Prescott); Ottawa River Power Corporation (Pembroke); Renfrew Hydro Inc. (Renfrew) |
| Northern Ontario | Greater Sudbury Hydro Inc. (Sudbury); North Bay Hydro Distribution Limited (North Bay); PUC Distribution Inc. (Sault Ste. Marie); Algoma Power Inc. (Fort Erie head office, Algoma District service); Synergy North Corporation (Thunder Bay); Northern Ontario Wires Inc. (Cochrane); Hearst Power Distribution Company Limited (Hearst); Fort Frances Power Corporation (Fort Frances); Atikokan Hydro Inc. (Atikokan); Sioux Lookout Hydro Inc. (Sioux Lookout) |
| James Bay coast community utilities | Attawapiskat Power Corporation; Fort Albany Power Corporation; Kashechewan Power Corporation |
A shorter, practical list is the set of distributors whose portals and bill formats EZGB already handles: the supported utilities page on ezgb.ca lists those 55+ electricity and gas utilities. It describes what EZGB connects to, not the OEB register.
Natural gas utilities
The OEB's natural gas rates page lists Enbridge Gas as operating the Enbridge Gas service area plus the Union South, Union North East and Union North West rate zones, and EPCOR Natural Gas as serving Aylmer and South Bruce. Enbridge's download and share your data page says residential and business customers can download up to 24 months of account, billing and usage data as XML files from the Share My Data section of My Account, and can authorize third parties for the same categories. EPCOR's Aylmer-area Green Button page describes Download My Data as a select-and-download of usage and billing data in industry-standard XML and Connect My Data as authorized sharing with registered third-party vendors, with a Revoke button under the Data Shares tab of its portal.
How to get usage data from any Ontario utility
Since November 2023 there has been a common answer. The OEB states that rate-regulated electricity and natural gas utilities were required to provide customers with access to Green Button by November 1, 2023, under O. Reg. 633/21. The province describes the result as the ability to download natural gas and hourly electricity usage data in a standardized digital format, or authorize automatic transfer to an application. The Green Button Alliance announced on November 2, 2023 that 55 Ontario utility platforms were certified, covering nearly 5.4 million electricity customers and over 3.5 million natural gas customers. Our plain-language guide to O. Reg. 633/21 covers the regulation itself.
In practice there are three routes, and a large portfolio uses all three:
- Green Button Download My Data. Log in, choose a date range and categories, save an XML file. Fine for a one-time study; tedious for monthly reporting across many accounts.
- Green Button Connect My Data. Authorize a third-party application once and the utility delivers data to it until you revoke the authorization. This is the route for dashboards and benchmarking. See Connect My Data versus Download My Data.
- Bills. Water utilities, municipal gas systems, sub-meter providers and fuel suppliers are outside the regulation and mostly issue PDF bills, which need to be digitized. Our guide to getting utility data from Ontario utilities walks through all three routes.
Green Button pages of the largest utilities
Details differ more than you would expect for a standard: some utilities run a separate portal, some put the feature inside the main account, and history lengths vary. The table lists what each utility's own page says.
| Utility | Where Green Button lives (per the utility) | What the utility's page says you get |
|---|---|---|
| [Alectra Utilities](https://alectrautilities.com/green-button) | A dedicated Green Button Portal linked from Alectra's page, separate from the billing account | Download My Data in XML covering usage, billing and account information; Connect My Data with revocation at any time |
| [Toronto Hydro](https://www.torontohydro.com/for-home/green-button) | Inside the self-serve account portal (Green Button data and Green Button connections pages) | Download My Data with consumption, billing and customer information; Connect My Data with third parties the customer selects, managed from the portal |
| [Hydro One](https://www.hydroone.com/saving-money-and-energy/green-button) | A Green Button icon inside myAccount | Download My Data with up to 24 months of billing, consumption and transaction data in XML; Connect My Data started from the third party's app, with sharing Hydro One describes as [indefinite until revoked](https://www.hydroone.com/savingmoneyandenergy_/Pages/third-party-apps.aspx) |
| [Hydro Ottawa](https://hydroottawa.com/en/residential/rates-billing/track-your-usage/green-button) | MyAccount usage pages and a Green Button portal | Up to 24 months of usage and billing data in XML at the smart meter's interval; Connect My Data with access revocable through account settings |
| [London Hydro](https://www.londonhydro.com/green-button-platform) | Green Button platform linked from the utility's site | Download My Data (certified in 2015) and Connect My Data (certified in 2022); London Hydro's page describes electricity, gas and water usage data |
| [Enbridge Gas](https://www.enbridgegas.com/ontario/download-and-share-your-data) | Share My Data section of My Account | Download My Data as XML for up to 24 months (account, billing, usage); Share My Data authorizations with a customer-chosen expiry |
Elexicon Energy, based in Ajax, also offers Green Button; check its own site for details. We have step-by-step guides for Alectra, Toronto Hydro and Hydro One. Hydro One commercial and industrial customers also have an Interval Data Portal showing hourly usage by meter, facility and account.
Frequently asked questions
How many electricity utilities are there in Ontario?
The OEB's licensed market participants file listed 60 issued electricity distributor licences in September 2026. The number changes as distributors merge, which has happened often over the past decade.
Who are the gas companies in Ontario?
The OEB sets rates for two natural gas utilities, Enbridge Gas and EPCOR Natural Gas Limited Partnership. Kitchener Utilities and Utilities Kingston run municipal gas systems whose rates the OEB does not regulate. Gas marketers sell price contracts but do not deliver gas.
Is Hydro One the same as Ontario Hydro?
Hydro One is the transmission and distribution company that came out of the breakup of Ontario Hydro; it is one of many licensed distributors today, not the only one, although it covers most of the province's territory by area.
Which Ontario utilities does EZGB support?
EZGB's supported utilities page lists the 55+ electricity and gas utilities whose portals, Green Button implementations and bill formats it handles. PDF bills from utilities outside that set can still be digitized.
How EZGB fits
EZGB collects billing and interval meter data from 55+ Ontario electricity and natural gas utilities through authorized utility connections and Green Button (Download My Data and Connect My Data), and digitizes PDF and scanned bills from water utilities, municipal gas systems and sub-meter providers with BillScan. Retrieval runs on a schedule, typically daily, through automated bill and meter data retrieval, and the output is one standardized dataset regardless of which of the distributors above issued the bill. Delivery is by REST API, SFTP, JSON or CSV. How EZGB works explains each step, and EZGB pricing lists the plans from a one-time download to enterprise.
If your portfolio spans several of the utilities in this list, the fastest way to see the difference a single feed makes is a demo with your own accounts: tell us which distributors are involved and we will show how each one's data arrives and what the combined export looks like. Request a demo on the pricing page.
Sources
- List of licensed companies (Ontario Energy Board)
- Licensed market participants open data (Ontario Energy Board)
- Electricity rates (Ontario Energy Board)
- Natural gas rates (Ontario Energy Board)
- Understanding electricity unit sub-meter providers (Ontario Energy Board)
- Service area map (Ontario Energy Board)
- Green Button (Ontario Energy Board)
- Green Button Alliance: 55 Ontario utility platforms certified
- About Hydro One
- Green Button pages: Hydro One, Alectra, Toronto Hydro, Hydro Ottawa, London Hydro, Enbridge Gas, EPCOR
Source: oeb.ca