Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is proposing a half-a-billion-dollar addition to its Bay d’Espoir generating station.
The plan is in Hydro’s reliability and adequacy report filed this week with the Public Utilities Board, which also highlights the unique challenges facing not just the utility, but the entire industry.
For NL Hydro, the basics of supply and demand have never been so relevant on so many levels.
The province’s primary producer of electricity is balancing domestic demand with commercial interest that far exceeds supply as more companies go green.
On the home front, the focus is ensuring backup for the troubled Labrador-Island Link, while also clearing the air in Holyrood.
In its report to the PUB, Hydro says the solution to both is a $500 million add-on at Bay d’Espoir.
In the wake of Muskrat Falls, CEO Jennifer Williams says such a project would be put through its paces.
“I’m very confident in our ability to execute this project, if it’s sanctioned, appropriately, in a very regulated, public fashion,” she said.
Hydro is also grappling with a torrent of commercial requests in response to the fed’s net zero carbon target of 2035.
Williams says, as a result, the electricity sector is facing unprecedented growth at break-neck speed. “More electrification is coming, and more supply is gonna be required.”
(File photo.)
Consumer Advocate Not Surprised by Report
The province’s Consumer Advocate says he’s not surprised to hear that NL Hydro has to increase capacity and continue to rely on the Holyrood Generating Plant despite the $13 billion Muskrat Falls project.
Dennis Browne has a copy of Hydro’s 339-page Reliability and Resource Adequacy Study presented to the Public Utilities Board this week. He says Hydro’s message to the PUB and the general public is clear—that the Labrador Island Link is not reliable, that alternate hydro development will be required on the island and that the Holyrood Generating Plant will be required for back-up until at least 2030.
Browne says the impact on consumers is yet to be known, but none of the revelations yesterday come as a surprise given the questions and concerns raised over the course of the project and through the Muskrat Falls inquiry.
He says consumers will likely be disappointed, if not outraged, by the news.
