Ensuring reliable service while responding to COVID-19

This article was published in April 2020 and may be outdated.

The situation around the world has changed rapidly, but our commitment to bring safe and reliable electricity and natural gas to your home remains the same.

You have our assurance we’ll continue to monitor new developments in the fight against COVID-19, and will implement appropriate additional steps as warranted over the coming weeks to ensure the continued safety of our customers, our employees and the communities we serve based on the latest guidance from public health officials.

Currently, our offices are closed to the public. Our Customer Contact Centre staff, working from dispersed locations, are available to help you over the phone at 204-480-5900 in Winnipeg or toll-free 1-888-624-9376. Our contact centre hours are Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

We also recognize the pandemic will affect some of you financially. If you find yourself unable to make payments on your Manitoba Hydro account, please call our Customer Contact Centre or email Credit & Recovery Services to discuss payment arrangements.

We have also discontinued all service disconnections related to overdue accounts until further notice.

You can also manage your bill online by signing up for an online account.

Suspension of non-essential work

All non-essential work where a Manitoba Hydro employee is required to enter an occupied residence has been suspended indefinitely. Any work associated with new construction or any outside work will continue for the time being. Non-essential work includes, but is not limited to:

  • meter exchanges;
  • residential electrical inspections;
  • residential natural gas appliance inspections;
  • public building leak surveys;
  • disconnections;
  • meter readings where the meter is located inside an occupied dwelling.

If your meter is located in your home, submit your meter reading online or follow the directions on the card that your meter reader left in your mailbox to avoid an estimated bill.

Inspection work will continue on new buildings and unoccupied structures.

If you smell natural gas or suspect carbon monoxide poisoning, call 204-480-5900 (toll-free at 1-888-624-9376) immediately. If you suspect carbon monoxide poisoning, call 911 immediately.

When attending an emergency or safety-related call, our first step is to make the area safe. We may need to enter your home or business to turn off the natural gas or electrical service. We will wear personal protective equipment recommended by public health authorities.

Emergency work may include:

  • power or natural gas outages;
  • fires;
  • smell of natural gas is present;
  • blowing natural gas;
  • suspected carbon monoxide poisoning;
  • customers without heat;
  • hospitals, institutions, schools, or nursing homes where lack of natural gas or electrical service is a threat to public safety.

Additional precautions

Based on the latest information from public health authorities, we are also taking these precautions:

  • Cancelling all non-essential business travel for our staff.
  • Encouraging and providing equipment to permit employees to work from home where possible.
  • Requiring any employee returning from personal travel from outside Manitoba to self-isolate for 14 days before returning to work if they cannot work from home.
  • Performing more frequent, intense cleaning and disinfecting of our offices and work locations.
  • Encouraging our employees to practice healthy behaviour such as social distancing and vigilant hand washing.