The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) is on a quest to find vital back-up power sources for those lazy, hazy, power crazy days of summer and a couple of Mississauga companies are hoping to be part of the solution.
Numerous industries that require back-up power have their own generation systems, which they use only when there is a blackout and they must keep operating.
It is that army of underused generators that the OPA hopes to harness for those days when the burden of hot weather and air conditioning threatens to overwhelm the province’s capacity to generate power.
“There are in the area of 2,000 megawatts of these generators available across the province, a lot of that within downtown Toronto,” said Robert Desnoyers, co-founder and vice-president at Mississauga-based Safety Power Inc.
“We’ve got those generating assets sitting out there strategically, and they’re located exactly where this province needs them most.”
A new OPA program called Demand Response 3 (DR3) could call those generators into service when the province needs them most.
Eight companies, called “aggregators,” have applied to participate in the DR3 program. An aggregator signs up as many owners of backup generators as it can, then strikes a single contract with the power authority guaranteeing that, when asked, a certain amount of backup power generation can be switched on.
There is a bit of a catch, however.
Most of the back-up generators run on diesel fuel, which produces significant emissions. Ontario’s Ministry of Environment has proposed a new regulation that will only allow non-emergency use of backup generators if they comply with strict emission guidelines.
That’s where would-be aggregators Safety Power and another Mississauga company called Gal Power Systems see huge opportunity in retro-fitting old diesel generators with emission control technologies. The cost can be covered through the DR3 program.
“We maintain that with some technology added to the generators we can demonstrate a diesel generator could meet or exceed emissions criteria,” said Desnoyers.
Over time, it’s hoped that diesel generators will be replaced with more efficient, cleaner natural gas generators. If enough are called into action, there may not be a need to build new natural gas plants proposed in Mississauga, such as the Sithe plant on Winston Churchill Blvd. at Royal Windsor Way, or the prospective plant on the site of the former Lakeview Generating Station.
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