Platform 27
Active Member
Looks like the OPA has squashed this for now.
A plan to create a more reliable electricity grid has come unplugged after the OPA rejected the latest proposals to build three cogeneration plants in the GTA.
A spokesperson for the power authority would only say in an email that the proposals, at Redpath Sugar on the waterfront, Atlantic Packaging in Scarborough and GM in Oshawa, didn’t meet “the necessary criteria.”
Cogeneration plants, called combined heat and power, can be twice as energy-efficient as natural gas-fired power plants and have been championed by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. They burn gas to create electricity, but use the by-product — heat — to create steam for industrial use. The OPA wanted to add 300 megawatts in total to the grid in Southern Ontario.
But it’s doubtful, had the plans been approved, that Toronto’s aging infrastructure could have handled the extra load, says Tanya Bruckmueller, spokesperson for Toronto Hydro.