Ontario Fails to Restart Power Plants as Demand Rises
Aug. 21 -- Ontario Power Generation Inc., which produces 70 percent of the electricity in Canada's most populous province, pushed back for another day the planned restart of three generating units needed to meet rising energy demands.
The Independent Market Operator, an agency that administers power supplies in Ontario, expects Ontario Power Generation to have the units running tomorrow, said Terry Young, a spokesman for the agency. Ontario Power Generation has said daily since Tuesday that the generators would restart the next day.
Today is forecast to be the hottest day this week in Toronto, Ontario's largest city, driving up demand for power to run air conditioners. The province has been struggling with reduced power production since Thursday, when the electricity went out in most of the province and the northeastern U.S.
Ontario expects to be able to generate 21,400 megawatts of electricity today and can import as much as 2,400 megawatts more, Young said. A megawatt can power about 800 average homes.
That's still not enough to meet the provincial demand on a typical late August day, though consumption has fallen by about a quarter since Thursday's blackout as people and businesses heeded government calls to cut power use.
`Frustrated'
The units to be restarted include coal-fired generators at the Nanticoke and Lakeview plants, together capable of producing about 785 megawatts, and a nuclear unit at the Pickering complex east of Toronto that can generate 516 megawatts.
Ontario Premier Ernie Eves called Ontario Power Chairman Bill Farlinger and Chief Executive Officer Ron Osborne in for a meeting earlier this week to explain the delays. Ontario Power Generation is owned by the provincial government.
``I'm as frustrated day to day as the public is on some of these issues,'' Eves said at a televised news conference yesterday. ``The people have the right to know what the most up- to-date information is and I've been trying my hardest to do that every day.''
Demand was 16,440 megawatts at 8 a.m., 3.8 percent higher than yesterday at the same time. Ontario demand peaked at 19,550 megawatts at 5 p.m. yesterday. The province imported 700 megawatts at the peak times, Young said. He said he didn't know how much the province paid for the imports.
The temperature in Toronto is forecast to rise to 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) later today. The normal high is 25 degrees Celsius, according to Environment Canada. |
