Jason Stockfish | [email protected]
ATCO representatives spoke to municipal council about the company鈥檚 response to the power outage that resulted from the Chetamon wildfire.
During the Jan. 10 committee of the whole meeting, the representatives talked about the timeline of their response, the installation and operation of the temporary generation plant, key takeaways of the event from ATCO鈥檚 perspective, and the company鈥檚 responsibility as established by the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC).
The timeline presented by ATCO shows that the Chetamon wildfire started on Sept. 1 within 1,000 metres of the lines providing power to Jasper, and when that occurred, ATCO initiated its Incident Command Centre (ICC) and generation supply.
By Sept. 2, the fire had doubled in size and moved to within 500 metres of power lines, and directions were given for generated power to be mobilized to Jasper.
As of Sept. 3, the threat of fire to ATCO infrastructure was only 300 metres away, and the company had mobilized its ICC to Jasper and the first generator units arrived.
A temporary trip in power was triggered the next day as the fire reached the power lines, which was around the same time that the first set of generators were commissioned and the next batch were arriving.
In the early morning on Sept. 5, the power tripped offline and ATCO switched critical loads to generators that were ready while waiting for the others to be commissioned, which was accomplished in about eight hours.
From Sept. 6 to Sept. 12, the lines were repaired and power was energized allowing the load to be transferred back to the grid.
On Sept. 13, after eight days of unreliable power, additional generators were brought online allowing power to be restored to the remaining residential core.
鈥淏ringing generation like this online to serve customers typically takes months, if not years of planning, designing and testing, and we did that in days,鈥� said Bill Friesen, operations manager for the Jasper area and operations chief during the wildfire.
In their presentation to committee members, ATCO noted some of the 鈥渟trengths realized鈥� after the power outage and wildfire.
鈥淥f course, being quick and getting here was key (and) getting the right team in place happened very quickly. Generation was secured and staged materials were rounded and mobilized to site,鈥� Friesen said.
鈥淲e pulled in individuals that had knowledge of the line itself and working within the park, (and) most of these folks had also been part of previous emergencies that we faced, so they brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to support the team and the effort here.鈥�
While some fire-hardened power poles did burn, only 11 out of 180 that were in the path of the wildfire were affected, which the company attributes to the resilience of the system鈥檚 design.
ATCO was also happy with its communication with stakeholders and with the fact that there were no safety-related incidents despite the ferocity of the fire.
The report also recognized that emergency events such as wildfire expose lessons to be learned moving forward.
One of those lessons was that the outage map that customers were referred to was providing incorrect data, and a team has been tasked with fixing the issue, explained Amanda Mattern, vice president of operations for ATCO Electric.
Another concern was that having ATCO鈥檚 ICC stationed in their local office was not ideal as it is also susceptible to outages and the power went down during a media scrum.
Alex Stuber, a supervising engineer with ATCO, spoke about the bigger challenges they faced with fuel supply in the fleet generators that were the only ones available at the time.
鈥淟NG is not usually our first choice. It is a more finicky fuel than diesel or even normal natural gas, and with us running the system (and) live-tweaking the engines to a different mixture was something that did add challenge to the overall complex situation,鈥� Stuber said.
As well, the company was dealing with more load than they expected under emergency conditions, and they had to turn to multiple vendors to acquire the generation units required.
In regards to what ATCO鈥檚 responsibility is, Mattern noted the importance of customer service but added that circumstances such as wildfire do arise and so continuous service is not guaranteed, as is stated in ATCO鈥檚 terms and conditions.
She also addressed the question about the recent decommissioning of the Palisades Power Plant and why it wasn鈥檛 kept as a backup plan.
鈥淔or today鈥檚 meeting, I鈥檓 not going to spend a great amount of time on the Jasper Interconnect Project. There were hearings and a project process, and ultimately the (AUC) made the decision鈥o move forward with the transmission line.鈥�
After Mayor Richard Ireland explained that many in the community were questioning the decision, Mattern further explained that the AUC had three options before it: the transmission line that was ultimately installed, upgrading the generation on site at the Palisades plant, or a combination of the transmission line and keeping the Palisades at some capacity of generation.
鈥淭here was a lot of stakeholder engagement, and there were some people who were opposed to the decision, but at the end of the day it is the regulator who makes that decision,鈥� she added.
Coun. Scott Wilson asked whether there was consideration of using the Astoria Dam to generate power during the wildfire, to which the company鈥檚 representatives spoke highly of the idea but explained there are complications.
鈥淲ith the way the units of Astoria are set up, they are unable to generate as an island and they are unable to synchronize with the controls that we had operating鈥� but we鈥檙e definitely looking at opportunities as to how we can utilize Astoria next time,鈥� Stuber said.
Coun. Rico Damota wondered if ATCO creating a backup power plan to provide continued service as a gesture of goodwill for the community was an option, but Stuber and Mattern explained that ATCO is regulated by the AUC, which does not allow for the creation of redundancy power generation for communities.
ATCO is working with local partners to improve the situation and find efficiencies and solutions moving forward, Friesen explained.
鈥淲e鈥檙e working with the municipality and Parks (and) looking at ways of creating different sources of power, such as solar.鈥�
