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TORONTO, March 9 /CNW/ - Hydro One is investing more than $2 million this year to upgrade its transmission lines in the Kenora District, to improve service reliability and strengthen the existing infrastructure supporting Ontario's province-wide transmission system.

The work includes replacing more than 50 poles in the area from the Pellican Pouch region west of Kenora, and extending to Kenora. Some of the transmission line follows a route through dense bush and forest, requiring specialized equipment.

Crews have already begun replacing cross arms and hydro poles along 15 kilometres of lines, using helicopters to bring new poles to the work sites, and employing large bucket trucks to install the 27-meter tall poles and 900 lbs. steel cross arms.

"We have made improvements to our Kenora Transmission Corridor an important focus in recent years," said Myles D'Arcey, Senior Vice President Customer Operations, Hydro One. "Our ongoing investments in upgrading and maintaining the electricity infrastructure in Kenora District are part of Hydro One's commitment to investing in our system and providing a high level of service for our customers in Northwestern Ontario."

The work began in mid-January and is expected to be completed later this month. Another major work program will then get underway, east of Kenora to Willard Lake, and continue to the end of April.

This is the third year that Hydro One has carried out similar upgrade work to transmission infrastructure in the Kenora area, investing more than $3 million since 2007 to maintain long-term system reliability. This year's investments are being completed over a period of eleven weeks, and are designed to meet growing demand for power in the region, improve reliability, and help facilitate repairs when outages occur.

Hydro One delivers electricity safely, reliably and responsibly to homes and businesses across the province of Ontario and owns and operates Ontario's 29,000 km high-voltage transmission network that delivers electricity to large industrial customers and municipal utilities, and a 123,000 km low-voltage distribution system that serves about 1.3 million end-use customers and smaller municipal utilities in the province. Hydro One is wholly owned by the Province of Ontario.