When unplanned power outages happen, there can be a surge in frustration. When they keep happening over and over, the toll can become more significant.
Mark Henry, the president of the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce, says the business community in town has felt the impact this year, from lost revenue at peak business hours, to fried equipment.
“Literally, [equipment] will be burnt on the inside and doesn’t work anymore,” he said. He says he has seen it happen at his restaurant. “It happens regularly enough that when the power goes out, it’s the first thought I have.”
Henry says he has heard other local residents say they feel like there has been an increase in outages.
They aren’t wrong.
The Northern Territories Power Corporation (NTPC) has recorded a 30-per-cent increase in power outages in the territory so far this year, largely due to outages in the North and South Slave regions.
There have been 91 outages this year so far. Over the last five years, the average has been 66 per year.
“There definitely has been a noticeable increase this year,” said Belinda Whitford, NTPC’s chief operating officer.
Most of the outages can be attributed to mechanical issues at the Snare Falls and Taltson hydroelectricity plants.
The Snare Falls unit started to trip this winter for reasons that remained unknown until June, after an attempt for a planned outage to identify the cause in May did not pan out.
NTPC has since identified the problem and ordered the necessary pieces for a repair. Whitford said they would be installed during a planned shutdown of the unit, most likely in late August or early September.
The Taltson unit is currently out of operation for a planned annual shutdown. The plant was out for two years before returning to service at the end of March this year. At the time, some work tied to the plant’s overhaul had not been finished.
While the Taltson plant has been on shutdown, several long outages have occurred in the Hay River area.
When power went out for long hours on July 30 and Aug. 1, a large amount of food purchased ahead of Kátł’odeeche First Nation’s Hand Games tournament had to be thrown out.
Shanon Pekok, the event’s coordinator, said she estimated about $5,000 worth of food was lost, though it could have been more. There was no backup power source for the refrigerators where meat was stored.
The event typically feeds about 300 participants out of the thousands of attendees every year. Pekok said they had to go and replace the spoiled food.
The outage also coincided with a heat wave in the area. Pekok said outages like that, which go on for several hours, can hit hard.
“It does impact the community, especially the elders,” she said. “If it happens during the day, it’s harder on people.”
Belinda Whitford of NTPC said heat waves hit the region just as it transitioned to diesel power because of the Taltson shutdown.
“That exacerbated the problems,” she said. “At one point we had four generation units out of service, but then the load from the community was really high, as people are trying to turn on air conditioners, turn on fans.”
NTPC inherited the diesel generators from Naka Power Utilities when it took over the facility earlier this year. NTPC overhauled the largest of the units there just before the Taltson shutdown.
Whitford said the unit would have needed more time to get running again and get tested. A water pump failure made the unit fail, which made the outage worse for the whole community since it bore the largest load.
The second largest unit also failed on July 30. As of last week, Whitford said NTPC was still working on fixing it.
The Hay River area was set to be back on hydro power as its primary source of electricity when the Taltson plant was to be brought back online in mid-August. However, a corrosion issue with the surge tank identified during the shutdown has delayed Taltson’s return to activity.
“The length of the delay is not known at this time but NTPC acknowledges that it is possible that major remediation work on the 60-year-old surge tank will be required,” the company said in a statement posted online on Friday.
The statement says NTPC knew about the corrosion issues for years, but a recent inspection found “it may be worse than expected.” Remedial work on the surge tank was not part of the two-year overhaul project for the plant.
CBC News contacted NTPC to ask when the Taltson plant is expected to return to operation.
Before the surge tank issue was made public, Whitford said that aging infrastructure has been one of NTPC’s biggest challenges. She also said the costs of dealing with that “gets built into rates.”
The corporation has applied to the Public Utilities Board for a rate increase. The board will have final say on what the increase looks like.
In the meantime, though more outages mean an increased reliance on diesel, Whitford said the cost of them wouldn’t be borne by NTPC customers.
“They won’t see an impact on their bills as a result of these outages,” she said.
