Ottawa Electricity Retailers and Natural Gas Providers
Residents and business owners of the city of Ottawa have a number of electricity and natural gas retailers to choose from, including the following companies:
These Ottawa retailers offer a variety of plans, including fixed rate, variable, and fixed monthly plans. To find out what these providers are currently charging for their services, please use our Ontario energy rate comparison form above.
Ottawa Energy and Natural Gas History
There may be no city in Ontario more steeped in history than Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. Originally established in 1826 as Bytown, and then incorporated under its current name in 1855, Ottawa has a metropolitan population of more than 1.2 million people.
Ottawa made extremely early investments in early technological innovations, such as electric lighting. In 1885, when gas lighting was just becoming available in many major Canadian cities, Ottawa was the first city in Canada to have downtown city streets completely illuminated with electric lights, erected by the Ottawa Electric Light Company.
The city’s rapid electrification was largely thanks to the conveniently located Chaudière Falls in 1881, which was the site of Canada’s very first hydro-based electrical generation station. The falls served as the site of many more hydroelectric stations over the next decade, providing the electricity which allowed to city to modernize at an amazing pace, as evidenced by the installation of electric lights in the city’s parliamentary buildings in 1882, and the construction electric streetcar system in the 1890s which continued to operate until the middle of the 20th Century.
Much of the city’s modern electrical grid is thanks to the efforts of Hydro Ottawa, which was originally founded as the Municipal Electric Department of the City of Ottawa in 1905, in response to the innumerable electric companies which had sprung up in the preceding decades. Hydro Ottawa had to work tirelessly in order to meet the rapidly growing needs of the city’s population, which ultimately led to Hydro Ottawa signing a contract with Ontario Hydro in 1927, enlisting the latter to help meet the city’s electricity needs. Because of this agreement, some outlying areas of Ottawa are still served by Ontario Hydro’s successor, Hydro One.
