Hydro Ottawa, Powerstream Join North Atlantic Mutual Assistance Group

Jan 31 2016

North Atlantic Mutual Assistance Group (NAMAG) comprises utilities from across northeast Canada and the U.S. that deliver not-for-profit assistance to each other during times of crisis.

Designed to increase coordination of resources and support, NAMAG empowers participating utilities to quickly action mutual assistance plans to restore power whenever and wherever assistance is needed. NAMAG utilities represent more than 36 million customers.

More specifically, benefits include:

• Resource sharing — mutual assistance provides a way for utilities affected by natural or man-made hazards to request and receive emergency assistance in the form of personnel, equipment, materials, and other specialized resources and associated services

• Cost effectiveness — mutual aid allows for a more efficient allocation of resources by eliminating the need for utilities to keep additional full-time staff on-hand for emergency-only situations; this also saves utilities money by not having to keep additional labour on staff for these situations

• Information sharing — regional mutual assistance groups also provide a forum for discussing industry related topics, forming supportive relationships, sharing best practices, minimizing individual company risks and labour costs, setting safety expectations, and coordinating regional restoration

• Emergency preparedness — these partnerships are helping to improve emergency preparedness by facilitating more collaboration as well as streamlining coordinated processes between state/provincial/federal and local governments and utilities, which can help ensure that utilities are even more prepared for the next major outage. An example of this collaboration is the streamlined process that has been developed with both the U.S. and Canadian Border Services to get utility Line staff and equipment over our respective borders more easily.

Other Canadian members include:

• Emera
• Hydro-One
• Hydro Quebec
• NB Power
• Powerstream
• Saint John Energy
• Toronto Hydro