Muskrat Falls lines failed 6 times since January

Patrick Butler · Radio-Canada

· Posted: Apr 09, 2025 8:52 AM EDT | Last Updated: 21 minutes ago

The Muskrat Falls transmission lines failed six times during the archetypal 4th of 2025, though Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro says the problems had nary interaction connected energy customers.

The problems took connected mean 9 hours to repair, according to the Crown utility, which is inactive incapable to unopen down the dense oil-burning Holyrood Thermal Generating Station due to the fact that of ongoing concerns astir the reliability of Muskrat Falls power.

N.L. Hydro revealed the outages connected the Labrador-Island Link (LIL), the immense 1,100km transmission strategy linking the Muskrat Falls dam to eastbound Newfoundland, successful a three-page missive sent to the Public Utilities Board (PUB) past Thursday.

According to the document, the LIL, a strategy carrying energy implicit 2 autarkic lines oregon "poles," was wholly offline during lone 2 of the six incidents.

During the different 4 incidents, 1 of the 2 poles was inactive online and capable to proceed carrying Muskrat Falls energy toward the Soldier's Pond substation extracurricular St. John's. 

What's to blame?

N.L. Hydro spokesperson Jill Pitcher said successful an email that problems with upwind and "control strategy constituent issues" caused the lines to travel 3 times successful January, erstwhile successful February and doubly successful March.

"Trips are experienced connected each transmission lines," she said. "Transmission lines are designed to travel successful effect to a assortment of strategy and/or upwind conditions. The trips circumstantial to the Labrador-Island Link successful Q1 did not interrupt oregon interaction our quality to proviso our customers with electricity."

Since coming into service, the Muskrat Falls lines person experienced a bid of problems, notably related to crystal and precocious winds. Repairs person sometimes taken weeks, arsenic immoderate towers are located successful isolated areas and hard to entree depending connected the clip of year.

N.L. Hydro has, however, repeatedly emphasized successful caller months that the Muskrat Falls lines are becoming progressively reliable and that caller assets volition ever acquisition problems successful the archetypal years aft commissioning.

In 2023, the inferior announced a four-year programme of repairs and upgrades to the LIL, pegged astatine $28 million. It said thousands of pieces of instrumentality had to beryllium replaced oregon installed, including 1,308 turnbuckles utilized to modulate voltage and cablegram length.

The 824-megawatt dam is not presently operating astatine afloat capacity, arsenic 1 of its 4 generating units needs to beryllium wholly dismantled, fixed a hydrogen embrittlement issue.

Unit 2 volition beryllium retired of work until May, according to abstracted correspondence with the PUB.

The Holyrood Thermal Generating Station, the 2nd largest concern polluter successful Newfoundland and Labrador, should person closed aft the commissioning of the Muskrat Falls project, but volition stay unfastened until the opening of the adjacent decade, fixed continuing doubts astir the reliability of the LIL.

N.L. Hydro promises to adjacent the works successful the aboriginal 2030s, erstwhile it volition person built a caller combustion turbine astatine Holyrood and an eighth generating portion astatine the existing Bay d'Espoir dam. Those projects are expected to outgo conscionable shy of $2 billion, according to the Crown utility.

A caller autarkic study stated that keeping the existing Holyrood works unfastened conscionable 5 years beyond its imaginable 2030 status day would outgo N.L. Hydro much than $700 million. 

The Muskrat Falls task was expected to outgo $7.4 cardinal erstwhile it was approved by the Newfoundland and Labrador authorities successful 2012. By June 2023, the measure had risen to $13.5 billion.

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