Price tag, timeline for N.L. Hydro expansion questioned in new report

Patrick Butler · Radio-Canada

· Posted: Jul 03, 2025 4:30 AM EDT | Last Updated: July 3

A caller autarkic study calls into question the terms tag, timelines and request forecasts underlying astir $2 cardinal successful operation projects projected by Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

In the 89-page document, consultants Bates White accidental they're convinced N.L. Hydro has proven it needs to summation powerfulness procreation connected the island, but they're acrophobic the Crown inferior whitethorn beryllium gathering excessively much, excessively accelerated — statements roundly rejected by the corporation connected Wednesday.

In a March exertion to the Public Utilities Build, N.L. Hydro projected to build: 

• a caller 150-megawatt diesel-burning combustion turbine successful Holyrood connected the Avalon Peninsula, and;

• a caller 154-megawatt turbine astatine the existing Bay d'Espoir hydroelectric station, adding an eighth portion to the works successful confederate Newfoundland. 

N.L. Hydro has repeatedly said the projects volition assistance conscionable the increasing request for power, fixed the province's continuing modulation to electrical cars and heating, and that its plans are based connected the astir "conservative" projections, which let it to support operation costs low.

However, the Bates White study questions whether the load-growth projections are successful information arsenic cautious arsenic advertised. 

"The dilatory decarbonization forecast, portion a tenable script for information successful the physique application, is not the lowest plausible load script implicit the readying horizon; little colonisation growth, little EV adoption rates and little concern load maturation are imaginable and could coincide", reads the 89-document.

Bates White worries of "excess" procreation connected the grid fixed that land ratepayers, on with a authorities complaint mitigation programme costing billions, are already sponging up outgo overruns astatine the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric task successful Labrador.

"Hydro is assured that these projects stay the slightest cost, reliable, environmentally liable proviso solutions for customers, and stands by these projects and their budgets arsenic they are based connected dependable estimates, due information of risk, and modular manufacture practices," wrote N.L. Hydro spokesperson Mark King successful a connection Wednesday.

The connection added that the Crown inferior volition taxable further accusation to the PUB "to clarify immoderate of the assumptions made and investigation completed by Bates White, to guarantee fulsome information of the energy strategy and its hydrological resources."

Need to discontinue old, polluting assets

Hydro's gathering program is predicated connected increasing request but besides the request to discontinue aging assets, including the 490-megawatt Holyrood Thermal Generating Station — a dense oil-burning works meant to adjacent years agone erstwhile Muskrat Falls came online. 

While the 824-megawatt Muskrat Falls dam has been successful work for years, doubts stay arsenic to the reliability of the project's 1100-kilometre transmission system, the Labrador Island Link (LIL). 

Until caller procreation is built, the Holyrood plant, the province's second-worst concern emitter, can't beryllium retired, though attraction and cognition costs beyond 2030 could outgo connected mean $138 cardinal per year, according to the report.

Questions implicit 2031 in-service date

While the study concludes that Hydro has made the lawsuit for caller generation, it questions wherefore some the caller Avalon combustion turbine and eighth Bay d'Espoir portion indispensable participate into work astatine the aforesaid time.

"There is not a demonstrable request for some projects successful 2031," reads the report. "Hydro's capableness enlargement modelling besides demonstrates that the optimal timing of the steadfast capableness additions is 2031 (for 1 resource) and 2035 (for the other)."

While the study notes bringing some facilities into work successful 2031 acts arsenic "a signifier of insurance" against an extended Muskrat Falls outage during the coldest months of the year, doing truthful volition outgo astir $200 cardinal more.

Hydro rejected the comments Wednesday, arguing that "to conscionable each of Hydro's assets readying criteria, some the Avalon CT [combustion turbine] and the eighth portion astatine Bay d'Espoir are required."

Transmission bottleneck

The study argues, however, that Hydro's exertion "may overstate the reliability contribution" of the caller Bay d'Espoir unit.

Sufficient h2o resources whitethorn not beryllium consistently disposable astatine Bay d'Espoir, according to the report, and determination are besides transmission constraints connected existing lines linking the Bay d'Espoir plant to the Soldier's Pond powerfulness presumption extracurricular St. John's.

The study says Hydro is actively "exploring solutions" to the transmission bottleneck, but that the physique exertion presently earlier the PUB "leaves unanswered the question of however this constraint volition yet beryllium alleviated, and astatine what cost."

A May 2023 study from TransGrid Solutions pegged the "least-cost option" of upgrading transmission astatine $150 million, but the Bates-White study says Hydro is "exploring alternate steps to maximize transportation capableness done existing assets."

Hydro said Wednesday that "transmission capableness issues could originate if a LIL pipole outage (where some LIL lines are offline) were to coincide with a play of elevated demand" but that it was "pursuing a fig of options to code strategy limitations and debar costly caller transmission."

"Hydro expects to implicit its investigation of these solutions earlier the extremity of the year, and believes it would beryllium premature to see immoderate imaginable caller transmission infrastructure successful the existent exertion earlier that is complete," it said.

The Bates White study says that fixed the questions surrounding the eighth Bay d'Espoir portion and imaginable "trapped off-Avalon generation," Hydro should archetypal absorption connected gathering the Avalon combustion turbine, which it believes could besides beryllium built quicker.

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