Third of emergency hydro supply dries up

- Deals for one-third of the electricity to be supplied by portable generators in Ontario this summer have fallen through, the province's energy ministry says.

But a spokesperson for Energy Minister John Baird says the province has made up the difference by getting private generators to supply more power during times of peak demand.

On June 3, the province announced that it had selected seven proposals to install natural gas-powered generators in Ontario to boost supplies. Last summer, the province was on the brink of blackouts because of power shortages.

The seven successful bidders would have supplied 409 megawatts of additional generating capacity.

But negotiations to sign final contracts with four of the seven bidders fell apart, leaving only the three largest suppliers gearing up to be ready to go in early August.

As a result, the portable generators will supply a total of only 267 megawatts. That amounts to roughly 1 per cent of Ontario's power supply on a day of record demand.

Dan Miles, a spokesperson for Baird, said that the province is satisfied with the result.

He noted that when the ministry first announced plans in April to add portable generators to Ontario's power grid, it had estimated that it would result in 200 to 400 megawatts of new supply. "We met that target," Miles said.

In addition, he said, the province has secured about 170 megawatts more generating capacity from private generators who otherwise would have stayed on the sidelines during the summer.

The total cost of securing both types of new generation will be about $70 million, he said.

Toronto Hydro was one of the bidders that scrapped its proposal to supply 20 megawatts of power.

The utility ran out of time in its efforts to reach a deal with equipment suppliers, Toronto Hydro's Stephen Andrews said.

Those who won the right to supply power through portable generators must promise to be available on short notice when needed. Toronto Hydro and its suppliers were unable to reach quick agreement on questions of liability if power couldn't be delivered as specified.

Andrews said there wasn't even time to resolve those issues and still have the generators installed by the end of July.

Liberal critic Sean Conway remains skeptical about the province's ability to get the generators on line this summer because the government's schedule was unrealistic.

"I'd be surprised if they get 50 or 60 per cent of what they had planned in place by the end of August," said Conway (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke).

No matter what the success rate, he said, the project remains a Band-Aid that does little to address Ontario's fundamental problem of too little power, and too few new generators on the planning board.

New Democratic Party leader Howard Hampton said the plan to add portable generators was hastily conceived from the start.

"It turned out only to be half a loaf — but a very expensive half a loaf," he said.

The money spent on generators would have been far better spent on an energy efficiency strategy to decrease power use, such as a low-interest loan program to help consumers buy more efficient appliances.