Yellowknife (Aug 04/06) - In order to cut down on power outages, a new natural gas engine was installed in Inuvik's power plant last week.

The process of introducing the new engine to the system of five existing engines has been in place for the last few months.

Northwest Territories Power Corporation employee Lawrence Neyando is one of the shift workers who oversees the gas engines in the power plant in Inuvik. - Dez Loreen/NNSL photo Inuvik's five power sectors 1. Downtown core 2. Hospital 3. Airport area 4. East end, not including hospital area 5. West end

Terry Rafferty is in charge of the engine control room, and said that engineers have been visiting the plant since February. "This whole process has been in the works for a while, there are specialists from Hay River here now," said Rafferty.

Rafferty said the control room has been in a state of constant monitoring for the last week. "There is a person on site for 12 hours a day, watching the status of our engines," he said.

The recent heat waves have not helped the process of installing the new engine, he explained. "The temperature of the engines are already hot and these warm days just add to the problem."

Lawrence Neyando is one of the shift workers who spends 12 hours a day in front of the monitors and checking the engine room.

"I do plant checks, and pretty well keep the power on, basically," said Neyando.

Neyando has been with the Inuvik plant for the past five years and said he enjoys his job.

His responsibilities include physical care of the gas engines, as well as the diesel back ups.

"I go down in the room and change the oil in the engines. I actually change engine power to keep our system balanced," said Neyando.

Rafferty explained the new process and why the whole system was on manual status.

Manual status means that a person controls the engine power and can distribute energy from one engine to another to increase stability.

"In a black out, the diesel engines start up. It takes about six minutes," said Rafferty.

Inuvik has been separated into five clusters, which are zones for power services.

"The biggest priority for us is the downtown section," said Rafferty.

The Inuvik plant has been running on natural gas power since 1999, when it made the leap from diesel fuel.

"Twelve years ago, we would have 10 people on shift, and now we are down to just three," explained Rafferty.

The reason for the shift to gas from diesel was the cost of the fuel.

"The cost of running the plant off just diesel would be a lot of money," said Rafferty.