September 1, 2009

Top Plants: Portlands Energy Centre, Ontario, Canada

Dr. Robert Peltier, PE

Owner/operator: The Portlands Energy Centre LP, a 50/50 limited partnership between Ontario Power Generation Inc. and TransCanada Energy Ltd.

Construction of the Portlands Energy Centre was a logistical dream: A mothballed power plant next door had an active switchyard, natural gas pipeline, and cooling water structure. The new facility put peak power into the Ontario Power Authority’s grid from its two combustion turbines only two years after collecting the necessary permits. The entire plant entered commercial service on April 23, 2009 — six weeks early.

The Portlands Energy Centre (PEC) is a gas-fired plant located on a 12-hectare parcel of land beside Lake Ontario in Port Land, about 5 kilometers southeast of downtown Toronto (Figure 1). The project site, created from a recovered landfill in 1912, has historically been used for power generation. Today, the site includes the R.L. Hearn Generating Station, built in the early 1950s and mothballed in 1983.


1. New plant docks in Port Land. The Portlands Energy Centre LP, a 50/50 limited partnership between Ontario Power Generation Inc. and TransCanada Energy Ltd., recently commissioned its 550-MW combined-cycle plant in Port Land, about 5 kilometers southeast of downtown Toronto. Courtesy: Portlands Energy Centre

However, the 115-kV Hydro One substation fed by Hearn is of strategic importance to the City of Toronto, and its proximity facilitated a direct grid connection for the new project located adjacent to Hearn. The site also has rail access and is close to a natural gas pipeline that supplied the Hearn plant in previous years. In other words, the site was ready-made for a new state-of-the-art combined-cycle plant.