On Friday, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) held a tour of the Chenaux generating station, which sits on the Ottawa River across from Portage-du-Fort, to mark the 75th anniversary of the facility.
The tour on Friday was for media and elected officials from both Quebec and Ontario, with about 400 members of the general public expected to explore the site the following day.
According to OPG, construction on the dam began in June 1948, with units coming online starting in 1950, and the project fully completed in December 1951.
Manager Chris Hamel, who oversees both the Chenaux and Chats Falls stations, led the tour and gave an overview of how the facility fits into Ontario’s electrical infrastructure.
“We’re the main power producer in the province of Ontario, with more than 65 hydroelectric dams,” he said. “[Chenaux] would be one of the larger ones we have in our fleet. All of our stations on the Ottawa River are similar in size.”
The station has around 20 employees, including electrical, mechanical and trades workers. Hamel explained that each of the total output of the station is 144 megawatts, or 18 megawatts per turbine unit.
“Usually we kind of use the analogy that one megawatt powers 1,000 homes so this site will power roughly 144,000 homes,” he said, adding that the main line from the station travels directly to the city of Peterborough, though they have the ability to direct power to Pembroke as well if the need arises.
“One thing to know, where does our electricity go? Basically two locations,” Hamel explained. “The main line that comes out of here, we step up the electricity to 230,000 volts and it goes straight to Peterborough. That’s the main X1P line, that’s what they call it. We can direct electricity to Pembroke as well, so there’s kind of those two options.”
During the tour, Hamel took guests along the length of the station, up to the top of the gate winches (visible when driving along the middle span in the road), and down into the depths of the facility. Pointing out the water gauge, Hamel explained that it’s a critical piece of equipment during the high flows of the spring.
“This doesn’t look like much but this is probably some of the most important [equipment] we have on the site. So especially in times of high flows, this is very critical equipment that we rely on,” he said.
“This is read continuously in real time through our control room at [R.H. Saunders generating station in Cornwall, Ont.]. On top of that, every month our maintenance staff come up and they’ll do a physical reading. So they’re verifying that what they’re reading on site is matching what they’re seeing in our control room at Saunders. We’re doing that continuously.”
Down in the depths of the plant, Hamel showed guests a turbine shaft that was switched off. The rotors, which sit above the room, are covered in electromagnets and generate electricity by spinning within what’s called a stator, which is made up of copper. Hamel said that each of the eight rotors they have weighs around 400,000 lbs and spin at 100 rpm. The electricity they generate is stepped up by transformers on the building’s exterior from 13,800 volts to 230,000 volts for transmission.
On the platform on the upper side of the dam, Hamel showed the crane that’s used to extract flotsam that collects at the dam.
“So one of our big chores every year for about a month is river debris removal, so both taking stuff off the surface and the stuff below,” he explained, estimating that they haul out around 60 dump truck loads per year.
“It’s funny, if you come up here the May long weekend, if you stand right here and look, you’ll see all kinds of stuff floating down. Basically that’s people opening up their cottages for the year, cleaning their shorelines and rifling whatever they have on their property into the river and letting it come to us. We get all kinds of stuff, docks, kayaks, you name it.”
He added that OPG installed a boom, or safety barrier, in 2018 to prevent people from getting too close to the facility.
“You name it and somebody will try it,” he said, recalling a time someone was tubing next to the dam. “Since the boom’s been installed, it’s really deterred anyone.”
