CAMPBELLFORD, ONT. — Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has announced a $25-million retrofit of its Ranney Falls Generation Station that will more than double the 95-year-old plant’s capacity.
The station is located on the Trent River and adjacent to Lock 12 on the Trent-Severn Waterway within the community of Campbellford in the Municipality of Trent Hills, Northumberland County.
The project involves replacing an old G3 turbine with a new 10-megawatt unit, noted a media statement issued recently.
The plant was built in 1922 by OPG’s predecessor, the Hydroelectric Power Commission of Ontario.
The project includes expansion of the existing forebay and tailrace channels, construction of the new G3 powerhouse with a new intake structure and the generating unit adjacent to the existing main powerhouse and construction of a new electrical substation to connect with one of the Hydro One Networks Inc. local distribution lines onsite.
The job also includes building a new spillway to bypass full station flow to the tailrace channel for emergency situations, decommissioning the secondary powerhouse and end of life 0.8 megawatt unit and rehabilitation of the stoplog structure and its operating deck adjacent to the roadway and Trent Severn bridge.
The statement said about 70 skilled trade workers are currently working on the project.
The new unit will produce enough energy each year to power about 10,000 homes and will extend the station’s life into the 22nd century, said OPG.
The Ranney Falls station’s long history has seen multiple ownership changes. The original site was formerly leased by the federal government to the Seymour Power Company, notes the OPG website. With its purchase of Seymour in 1916, the rights to the site were acquired by the province. The Ranney Falls G1 and G2 units were commissioned in August 1922 and September 1922, respectively. Unit G3, which started operation in 1926, was acquired by the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario from the Quinte and Trent Valley Power Company in 1937.
Ranney Falls was transferred to OPG on April 1, 1999 and is managed by the Central Hydro Plant Group with remote operation from the North Bay Control Centre and maintained by the Campbellford Service Centre.
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