Skip to content

Paying your bills during the Canada Post service disruption. Learn more

Home › Accounts › Electricity rates & energy use › Access your building's peak load data

Access your building's peak load electrical data

Buildings in Downtown Vancouver, BC, Canada

Many of our customers in multi-unit residential, strata property or mixed-use buildings are interested in gathering their peak load electrical data. It's essential information when you and your neighbours are planning to change how you use electricity, such as by:

  • Adding electric vehicle (EV) chargers.
  • Switching from gas heating to electric.
  • Installing heat pumps.
  • Installing a heated pool.

Related: Rather than peak load data, some buildings may need their building’s total consumption data for the purposes of energy efficiency benchmarking, monitoring or reporting. For that, see energy efficiency benchmarking.

Electrical data your contractor will need

There are a few key data points that your electrical contractor will use to see if your building, strata, or facility can support the new equipment or amenities – in other words, the new electrical load – that you want to add.

  1. Electrical capacity: This is the total amount of power that your building can support, and it's determined by the electrical infrastructure.
  2. Demand: The total amount of power required by all the electrical devices and appliances at the premises instantaneously at any given time. It can vary depending on the time of day and the number of people using the building or amenities.
  3. Peak demand: The highest rate of electricity use during a period of time. It's the time of day or year when electricity consumption is at its peak, often coinciding with the most extreme temperatures of the year.
  4. New electrical load: This isn't something your usage history will tell you, but your electrical contractor can help you understand this too. It's typically the maximum draw that the new appliance or equipment and its electrical infrastructure will require to safely provide the results you want.

Your contractor will review the data to see if there's enough available capacity to support the new electrical load. If not, you may need infrastructure upgrades, which come at a cost.

How to access your building, strata, or facility's data

For individual homes, or commercial buildings serviced by a single account

Residential or commercial customers can access their historical usage data in MyHydro. Simply log in to MyHydro, then:

  • Select "View detailed consumption" to view recent or annual data.
  • Or, select "Data download centre" to view more detailed data.

For an entire multi-unit building or set of buildings managed by several owners

To get electrical load data for a building with multiple owners, submit a building data request form. Once processed, we'll send you a report with the requested data.

Request building data

 

Permission and privacy

We provide our customers with the information they need to make informed energy decisions, while also ensuring our account holder's information is protected from unauthorized access. We may ask authentication questions or request proof that a contractor/consultant is working on behalf of our customer.

How to interpret the data

Here's what you'll see in the report, and what it means.

kWh: Our meters measure electrical energy in kilowatt-hours (kWh). One kWh is equivalent to 1,000 watts consumed for one hour.

Demand: Demand is the rate at which electricity is used and is typically measured in kilowatts (kW). It represents the total amount of electricity used during the time interval to power everything associated with the meter. Demand is not measured for residential meters.

One-hour intervals: For residential and small commercial meters, kWh consumption is usually presented in either one-hour intervals (the shortest interval available for these meters), or for the duration of the billing period.

Five-minute intervals: Commercial, institutional, and light-industrial may have electricity consumption presented in intervals as short as five minutes. They may also display demand and power factor.

Calculated demand: For instances where demand (or peak demand) is not provided, demand can be calculated using the maximum kWh reading and applying a reasonable correction factor. Technical Safety BC has not provided guidance on what correction factor to use in multi-family buildings.

Related information

Access your building's aggregated consumption data

For multi-unit residential, commercial or mixed-use buildings looking to get their building's total electricity consumption on a monthly or annual basis. This is used for energy efficiency benchmarking or reporting regulations.