Hearn generating plan dealt a blow
Last updated Mar 17 2006 08:56 AM EST
CBC News
A proposal to locate Toronto's new power plant inside the dormant Hearn generating station may be dropped because the building's lease would not allow it.
The province's energy ministry recently announced plans to build a new station next to the Hearn plant after concluding that the city would run short of power within a few years unless extra generating capacity was created.
Toronto Hydro and Constellation Energy had put forward a competing proposal to build a smaller facility inside the Hearn station, a plan that Mayor David Miller and local residents applauded as it would eliminate the need for another industrial structure on land slated for housing and parks.
However, they've since discovered the current lease prohibits using the building for that purpose. The consortium is now considering a different, as-yet unidentified site owned by the Toronto Economic Development Corporation.
The lease is owned by developer Mario Cortelucci
TEDCO president Jeff Steiner said he's willing to have a power plant built on corporation land if both the province's plan and the original Hydro-Constellation plan are abandoned.
Local councillor Sandra Bussin, Ward 32, said Friday she believes provincial Energy Minister Donna Cansfield can overturn the lease requirements, and she is planning to bring that up with her during a meeting next week.
"The minister has the ability, I believe, to deal with that," Bussin said. "(The lease requirement) was imposed by (the Mike Harris) government that it could not for 20 years be used as a power plant.
"But I'm not prepared to say, at this point, (that the Hearn site) is not an option."
Environmentalists and some local residents have pushed for plans to reuse the existing Hearn structure because it would eliminate the need for another industrial facility on the waterfront.
The province, however, rejected the Hearn option because it said the building would not provide enough space for the new plant's proposed 550 megawatts of generating capacity. And putting it outside the city would not work because there isn't sufficient capacity on existing power lines to ship in more electricity from elsewhere.
Miller has argued that the new plant, which the province plans to build next to the decommissioned Hearn station on Toronto's eastern waterfront, should instead be built inside the existing building.
He says building a second power plant in the Portlands area will interfere with the city's waterfront redevelopment plans, which include more housing and parks.
Phase one of the Portlands project is due to bring an additional 330 megawatts of power online by the summer of 2008.
The second phase, set for completion by 2009, will add another 220 megawatts of capacity. |
