Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, historic weather patterns give us some assurance that a freezing rain storm like the one that occurred in Quebec and Ontario would not happen in the Northwest Territories or around Yellowknife. Having said that, I am sure that Hydro Quebec officials were also saying that before their storm struck. A similarity to our system is that all of our hydro power comes along one set of lines from the Snare system to the city of Yellowknife, and if an ice storm were to cause those lines to collapse, it would mean a significant amount of work, probably months of work to get that line back up. The one area that is different about the Yellowknife power source is that we have almost the same capacity in diesel generation available to us here within the city. Thirty-two megawatts of power is available by diesel at the Jackfish generating station that is sufficient to provide all of the needs of the city for power on a mild winter day down to, say, ten or 15 degrees below. Should the problem occur and then the temperature drop, we would have to bring in extra generators and transformers to deal with the situation. Apparently discussions have taken place between Northland Utilities and the Power Corporation. Northland does have access to generators in Alberta that they could ship in within 24 hours to have available to make sure that there was sufficient power. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Charles Dent on Question 195-13(5): Emergency Power Measures
In the Legislative Assembly on February 3rd, 1998. See this statement in context.
Return To Question 195-13(5): Emergency Power Measures
Question 195-13(5): Emergency Power Measures
Item 6: Oral Questions
February 2nd, 1998
Page 518
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