Guest Post by PlanetNL
PlanetNL43: Assessing the Holyrood
Life Extension Report
Dispelling Lies and Half Truths
On March 31, NL Hydro provided the Public Utilities Board with a consultant report assessing the Holyrood plant with a focus on continuing to use it for potentially decades more as a backup facility in the event of a major loss of power to the Island grid. The report considers just one of several options being considered in a major Reliability Assessment hearing before the PUB started in 2018 and seems as though it may never conclude.
The new report provides a favorable review of the suitability of the plant, maintained as
a backup facility. To what should be no
one’s surprise, the plant is not in an awful and unreliable condition and way
past its prime. It just needs what
should be considered ordinary upkeep for any industrial facility.
What we don’t know, however, is what exactly Hydro asked the consultant to study or if the report accurately describes the way the Holyrood plant must be used to provide an acceptable level of utility reliability. It appears Hydro has guided their consultant to the wrong scenario.
