South Slave communities are still chugging along on diesel because work to refurbish a hydro dam has taken the NWT Power Corporation twice the time it expected.
The Taltson hydro system, north of Fort Smith, ordinarily supplies clean power to Hay River, the Kátł’odeeche First Nation, Fort Smith, Fort Resolution and Enterprise.
Taltson was built in 1965. Last May, the power corporation shut the facility down to replace its turbine and generator, work described as urgent given the age of the equipment involved.
The estimated price tag at the time was $67 million for the work plus extra diesel costs, since the only large-scale alternative to hydro in the communities served by Taltson is diesel generators.
The plan was to flip those communities to diesel till November 2023 – a period of six months – then bring Taltson back online.
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Now, the power corporation told Cabin Radio in an update, Taltson won’t be back in service until May 2024, a year after it shut down.
“Commissioning of the refurbished Taltson hydro unit is taking longer to complete than expected,” the power corporation acknowledged.
Last summer’s wildfires pushed the work into the winter, NTPC said by email. At one point, a wildfire scored a direct hit on the Taltson site, causing the loss of some buildings.
By winter, the power corporation continued, “the pace of work slowed as extreme cold and ice build-up impacted both construction and commissioning.”
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As work looked to be reaching a conclusion in January, a contractor “identified a mechanical alignment issue that required additional time to resolve,” NTPC added.
“Taltson is expected to return to service in May 2024,” the power corporation concluded.
Earlier this week, NTPC said on Facebook that work will soon begin to finalize the commissioning of the refurbished plant, meaning bringing the new turbine online and moving back to hydro from diesel.
Power outages in Hay River and Fort Smith are expected at times from April 29 to May 4 as the switchover is made, the power corporation stated.
Given the work took twice the time initially budgeted, the power corporation told Cabin Radio the diesel cost will be twice the original estimate. According to NTPC, that means around $7 million has been spent on diesel to power South Slave communities for the past year.
The power corporation asked an NWT regulator in February to let it increase power bills by more than 12 percent to cover the increasing cost of buying diesel fuel.
Regulator the Public Utilities Board disagreed with significant aspects of that application and ordered NTPC to come back with a new set of figures by the end of Friday this week, meaning the ultimate cost increase to power corp customers remains to be seen.
