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Yk power outages drop by nearly half in one year One year after vowing to decrease outages by 70 per cent, NTPC is happy with results; more improvements to come
Laura Busch
Northern News Services
Published Monday, September 23, 2013
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Despite the fact there have been three city-wide power outages in the past month, the Northwest Territories Power Corporation's CEO was pleased to announce he is following through on his promise to drastically reduce the number of outages in the city.
Since last year, the number of Yellowknife power outages due to Northwest Territories Power Corporation service interruptions has been cut in half. Most of the city's power comes from here, Bluefish Dam. Its hydro line was one of the focuses of a 15-point action plan introduced last year after a series of outages outraged residents. - Candace Thomson/NNSL photo |
In the past year, the number of outages caused by Northwest Territories Power Corporation (NTPC) systems reduced by 47 per cent.
So far in 2013, Yellowknifers have experienced nine outages due to NTPC service interruptions, compared with 17 outages in 2012.
The amount of outages last year caused significant public outrage, and NTPC CEO Emanuel DaRosa pledged to reduce Yellowknife power outages by 70 per cent within three years on Sept. 19, 2012.
One year after that announcement, that came with a 15-point plan for how NTPC would achieve this lofty goal, DaRosa is pleased with the results so far.
"We've made significant progress with 47 per cent fewer outages this year compared to last year, but we still have work to do," he stated in a press release on Sept. 18.
That work should bring the total number of city-wide outages in Yellowknife down to five per year by 2015 still considerably higher than the national average, which is 1.5 outages per year.
Yk power outages by the numbers
- NTPC-caused outages in 2013: 9
- NTPC-caused outages in 2012: 17
- Average outages experienced by most Canadians in the past year: 1.5
Source: Northwest Territories Power Corporation
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"Even though this is higher than the national average, the isolated system in Yellowknife as compared to the interconnected system in the south makes this a reasonable target for now," stated DaRosa. "Once we get there, we can reassess the cost to make further improvements."
In the past year, NTPC employees have been hard at work clearing brush from around transmission lines, installing bird deterrents, studying lightning protection and have improved the line crossing at Yellowknife River, said NTPC's director of hydro operations Jay Pickett.
"It would be nice if we had that one smoking gun or smoking barrel but I really think it was a lot of hard work and incremental changes sneaking up on this problem," he said.
Comparing Yellowknife's power system with power grids in the south is like comparing a four-metre Boston whaler to an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean, said Pickett.
"When we see any waves, or bumps in electricity, it has a much greater effect because we're an isolated, small system."
The North Slave grid is between 25 and 30 megawatts, compared with the Pacific Northwest grid, which is an 8,000-megawatt region.
Further complicating matters is the fact that most of Yellowknife's hydro power roughly 80 per cent comes from the Snare Lake Hydro Site, which is located 140 km north of the city.
"It's harder for the electric system to control those swings (in the electrical load) because it's farther away," said Pickett. "We're doing everything we can to optimize that system and then the problem still exists because we only have one transmission line to that power plant and one to Bluefish. If we have a problem with that transmission line, we lose the whole thing. In a big grid, they have up to four or five different paths they can move power around on."
Work will continue over the next two years to reach the goal of five power outages per year, including replacing the 1940s-style governors equipment that control how much power generators put out with electronic ones for finer control, said Pickett.
"The last ones are going to be the hardest to pick up but we didn't expect such a big change in the first year," he said. "We're going to continue over the next two years to reduce that amount even further."
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