BUILDING GAS-FIRED POWER PLANTS FOR DECLINING ELECTRICITY DEMAND

Seven years after sparking a major scandal that culminated in last week’s criminal conviction of a former top Dalton McGuinty aide, two gas plants are back on the radar as critics question the need for them.
The natural gas-fired power plants abruptly axed in Mississauga and Oakville by the former premier before the 2011 election have since found new life near Sarnia and Napanee at a cost of over $1 billion — but as demand for electricity declines.
Conservative MPP Randy Hillier, whose riding of Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington includes the Napanee plants, bristles at that logic.
“They cancel the plant down in Oakville where there’s big demand, and they relocate it to eastern Ontario where there’s no demand, beside an existing generating station that they don’t really use.”