Epp heads interim board at OPG

- Jake Epp, the head of a special panel that lambasted Ontario Power Generation's performance in a report recently, has been named chairman of an interim board of directors for the company.

Joining Epp are Ian Ross, formerly of the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario; and top civil servant Kathryn Bouey, secretary of the management board of Ontario's cabinet.

The move is the latest stage in a housecleaning at OPG following the report by Epp and two other members of a special panel appointed by Energy Minister Dwight Duncan. It probed delays and cost overruns in restarting OPG's Pickering A nuclear generating station.

Former chairman Bill Farlinger, chief executive Ron Osborne and chief operating officer Graham Brown all left the company last week following the report's release.

Appointment of the new three-person board is a short-term measure "while the government considers the future of the company," a release from Duncan's office said recently. Duncan had said last week that until OPG's future is sorted out, the company's board would make only routine business decisions and the government would take effective control.

All OPG's former directors have now resigned.

Epp's report flayed OPG's performance at Pickering A, saying the company failed to adequately plan, supervise or execute the project.

Initial estimates put the cost of the job of restarting all four reactors at $780 million; the board first formally approved the cost at $1.1 billion.

New suppliers

Epp's report says it may take as much as $4 billion to complete the project.

The first reactor was supposed to be up and running in 2000, but got back into operation only in September this year. The three other reactors have not yet been restarted.

Duncan revealed recently he has been meeting with potential new electricity suppliers.

"We need new supply in Ontario. There's a long history of private generation. We want to make sure we have an attractive investment climate selling into a public system to ensure that we have adequate supply of energy going forward," Duncan said before a cabinet meeting.

Companies included in that list are Calgary-based TransAlta Corp. and TransCanada Corp., two major companies that have power-generation divisions.

TransAlta has natural gas generation plants in Ottawa, Windsor, Mississauga and Sarnia. TransCanada operates five small electricity-generation stations in Northern Ontario and has a one-third stake in the Bruce nuclear plant.