Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation some questions with regard to Jean Marie River. The chief had called me today and they’re really having issues with a lot of power outages in that community with the generators. I’d just like to ask the Minister if he’s aware of it and what exactly is going on with these generators. Thank you very much.
Minister responsible for the Power Corporation, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve been kept up to date on the outages that have occurred and some of the concerns around there. I know, for example, in February there were a number of outages, some from a 10-minute outage to about a 40-minute outage. Some of it is equipment related and we’re investigating what’s a growing concern.
I do know that in our past in our discussions about alternative energies, the Jean Marie facility was looked at I’ll have to get information of where that sits. I’m looking at replacement of our engines there to a newer model, but we are investigating if that was feasible, because we do know that we’re coming up to retrofit time. But I’ll get additional information back to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Does the Minister know if it’s still in the capital plan then, and if so, is it slated for replacement this year? Thank you.
Thank you. I’ll have to get back to the Member on that, because the Power Corp has its capital replacement process as part of its rate structures as to when it can replace equipment. I do know that overall, from our side looking at the old Energy Coordinating Committee process, that Jean Marie River was looked at as a possibility of looking at biomass operations and I’ll have to get the latest on that. I don’t believe replacement is for this coming year, but they are looking at when that actual replacement comes up to look at what we can do. But I’ll get the latest from the NWTPC and then get that back to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Also, just given the importance of the power outages for the residents of Jean Marie, I’d like to ask the Minister if he could come up with a plan and have his staff get over there and come up with at least an interim solution to all those power outages and monitor their generators. Thank you.
Thank you. The issues of the outages is one that I’ve asked to get some additional information on from the Power Corporation and I’ll get that back to the Member, as well as I’ll have them communicate with the community. Thank you.
Next I have Mr. Ramsay.
