Rob Collett of NL Hydro, and Byron Chubbs of NF Power address concerns over the freezing weather,
Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is facing an unprecedented situation with the total shutdown of the province’s largest power plant, Bay d’Espoir.
It’s because of very thick “frazil” ice which will take days to chip away.
Electricity output is near maximum capacity, and residential and commercial customers are being asked to do whatever they can to conserve.
Hydro VP Rob Collett assures that this is not Dark NL as they are at the “Power Warning” stage. The next stage would be “Power Emergency” and that is where rotating outages would kick in.
NF Power VP Byron Chubbs says any area on a rotating outage would be without electricity for a maximum of 60 minutes, but there would be no notice prior as to which area would go dark and when.
However, there would be notice that the utilities are going into the Power Emergency stage.
Chubbs says all customers on the island would be susceptible to the rotating outages.
“It would be a sequence where they’re working all the way from top to bottom and then back to the first group again so that it’s spread out fairly across the island,” says Chubbs.
Chubbs says the most vulnerable period will be this evening through Monday.
“It’s colder again tomorrow and it’s colder even again on Monday but temperatures do start to warm up on Monday.”
The province is importing power from Nova Scotia, getting some from Muskrat Falls and from Holyrood.