Cogen up and running 95 per cent of the time

Grant Warkentin
Campbell River Mirror
Aug 17 2005

The Island Cogen power plant beside the Elk Falls paper mill has had minimal downtime this year.

During the second quarter of 2005, the natural gas-fired power plant was capable of generating electricity 95 per cent of the time, or 496,025 megawatt-hours. During the same time last year, the plant was only capable of generating electricity 46 per cent of the time, or 191,482 megawatt-hours of electricity.

The Island Cogen facility was shut down for four days in the second quarter of 2005 for maintenance compared to 63 days for the same period 2004. That's because in spring 2004, the plant was undergoing a major upgrade to increase its capacity to generate electricity. The plant's owners, Calpine Power Income Fund, are happy with the performance of all its power plants.

"We are pleased to announce another quarter of strong results from all of our facilities," said Toby Austin, president and CEO of Calpine Canada Power Ltd., manager of Calpine Power Income Fund, in a news release. "All of our facilities performed at high levels of availability, contributing to net earnings at or above expected levels."

Since the upgrade, the plant has been able to generate more electricity - and more revenue - for its owners.

During the first six months of 2005, the plant generated 1,018,881 megawatt-hours of electricity at 97 per cent availability.

During the same time, the plant earned $22.2 million in revenue from electricity sales compared to $13.2 million during the same time last year.

The company also made more money from the excess steam it sells to NorskeCanada's paper mill next door. During the first six months of 2005, it sold $6.4 million worth of steam to the paper mill compared to $4.9 million during the same time last year.

"As a result of the strengthening Canadian dollar, as well as natural gas prices, the steam price has increased 25 per cent over the prior quarter," says the news release. "Steam volumes, although higher than the second quarter of 2004, were lower than expected due to repairs to equipment required for delivery of steam to NorskeSkog.

"Lost revenue from lower steam sales was offset by the plant's higher deliveries of electrical power during this period." Last week, however, revenue and deliveries of steam have returned to normal levels, according to the news release.

Posted by Arthur Caldicott on 21 Aug 2005