Ontario Power Generation

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Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is a public company whose shares are wholly owned by the government of Ontario. It is responsible for electricity generation in the province of Ontario, Canada.

OPG was established in April 1999 under the provincial government of premier Mike Harris as a precursor to deregulation of the province's electrical transmission delivery. As part of government plans to privatize the assets of Ontario Hydro, the utility was split into 5 separate corporations. OPG was created as the operator of all of Ontario Hydro's electrical generating stations. OPG was not intended to be included in the 2001 failed Initial Public Offering of stock in its sister company Hydro One, another Ontario Hydro spin-off, and the planned privatization of all electrical generation and distribution in the province has been postponed indefinitely. Although the government of Ontario has recently created an open electricity market, it regulates the price OPG receives for electricity provided to be less than the market average, in an attempt to stabilize prices.

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OPG is Canada's largest owner of nuclear power plants with responsibility for operating 12 CANDU reactors. Another 8 CANDU reactors in Tiverton that were owned/operated by Ontario Hydro until the 1999 splitting of the company, are still owned by OPG but are operated under a long term lease by an independent private sector consortium called Bruce Power since May 2001.

OPG has attracted considerable controversy for its continued operation of some of Canada's worst individual air pollution sources in its coal fired generating stations. Nanticoke GS is North America's largest coal fired generating station and the single worst air pollution source for southern Ontario and northern New York state, attracting considerable criticism from environmentalists and legislators in both jurisdictions. [1] Lambton GS is the second worst air polluter in the province and Lakeview GS was the largest single source of smog in the Golden Horseshoe/GTA. However, these stations generate considerably less pollution than the collective smog produced by cars and trucks in the Golden Horseshoe. OPG argues that because Nanticoke houses a massive 4,000MW of generation capacity in one site, it produces "the most pollution in one site" despite being a reasonably clean plant per MW of power.

OPG endured significant criticism concerning the slow return to operation of some of its nuclear generating stations which had been knocked offline by the August 14, 2003 blackout. The problem was that all but one of the reactors were tripped and allowed to poison out, preventing an early reconnection to the electricity grid. Once shut down, all nuclear reactors take a relatively long amount of time to return to service.

Another source of criticism was the extended and expensive refit to Unit 4 of the four mothballed reactors at Pickering A GS. Management underestimated the amount of work and complexity of the refurbishment project. However, the experience of refurbishing Unit 1 has been significantly different with a much tighter adherence to schedule and budget. Unit 1 was returned to service in November 2005. It was recently decided that Units 2 and 3, which had considerably larger maintenance issues, would not be restarted as the business case could not be made.

OPG, currently, owns/operates or contracts some limited alternative electricity generation through 2 wind power sites as well as 2 solar power sites and 2 biomass energy sites. However, these will probably have to be divested as the government does not want OPG to compete against private companies in the anticipated lucrative environmentally friendly power market.

On the local public relations side, OPG has won many awards for it's performance as a "good corporate citizen." OPG regularly sponsors community events, houses wildlife trails in the exclusion zones around it's reactors, and regularly reports on it's safety and environmental record.

Former Ontario Hydro generating stations currently operated by OPG include:

Nuclear

Pickering A (4 CANDU reactors)
Pickering B (4 CANDU reactors)
Darlington (4 CANDU reactors)
Bruce A (4 CANDU reactors, operated by Bruce Power)
Bruce B (4 CANDU reactors, operated by Bruce Power)

Fossil Fuel

Atikokan (coal), planned to be shutdown by 2007
Lambton (coal), planned to be shutdown by 2007
Nanticoke (coal), planned to be shutdown by 2009 - delayed by 2 years as of 15 June 2005
Thunder Bay (coal), planned to be shutdown by 2007
Lakeview (coal), Shutdown April 30 2005
Lennox (oil/natural gas)
Brighton Beach Generating Station (natural gas), operated by Coral Energy Canada Inc, jointly owned by OPG and ATCO Power Ltd
(Undergoing approvals process) Portlands Energy Centre (natural gas)