Business

OPG hydroelectric facilities win performance awards

Navigant Consulting has recognized four Ontario Power Generation (OPG) hydroelectric stations for excellent performance, including 69-MW Alexander Generating Station, which was awarded the Overall Best Performer for 2015.
 
OPG hydroelectric facilities win performance awards

Navigant Consulting has recognized four Ontario Power Generation (OPG) hydroelectric stations for excellent performance, including 69-MW Alexander Generating Station, which was awarded the Overall Best Performer for 2015.

“This international award recognizes hydro plants for excellence in operations and maintenance cost, plus availability and reliability performance,” said Dale Probasco, Navigant managing director. “This is a significant achievement and I want to congratulate OPG.”

Navigant have been benchmarking Hydro plants for more than 20 years and fossil plants for more than 15 years.

Alexander Generating Station, commissioned in 1930, is located on the Nipigon River about 16 km northwest of the Township of Nipigon. It produces enough electricity each year to power about 40,000 homes.

In addition, three additional OPG hydropower facilities received awards:

  • 91-MW Caribou Falls Generating Station as best performer for small, high-use stations;
  • 429-MW Des Joachims Generating Station was noted as one of the best performers for medium, high-use stations; and
  • 1,997-MW Sir Adam Beck No. 2 Generating Station in Niagara Falls was recognized as one of the best performers among large stations.

The awards are based on Navigant’s annual benchmarking report, which for this year is GKS Hydro 2015. According to Navigant, GKS Hydro was first implemented in 1994 and is a combination of quantitative benchmarks and management consulting expertise that provides a diagnostic assessment of each participant’s hydro generation organization.

This year’s study included 145 plants representing a total of more than 40,000 MW of hydro. TVA’s 59-MW Fort Patrick Henry hydroelectric plant won the 2015 Operational Excellence Runner-Up Award.

Participating plants are given overall scores that are based on a combination of low-cost and high-service metrics, each rank ordered using a probability distribution.

Navigant has been providing the GKS Operational Excellence Award for fossil plants since 2010 and began the GKS Operational Excellence Award for Hydro in 2014.