Portlands Energy Centre

The Portlands Energy Centre is a 550-megawatt natural gas electrical generating station on the Toronto waterfront at 470 Unwin Avenue – next to the site of the decommissioned Hearn Generating Station.

Corporate Support

The Portlands Energy Centre is being funded by a joint partnership between Ontario Power Generation and TransCanada Energy.

Technical specifications of the proposed plant

The technical specifications of the plant in the original submission of the environmental review report (a less rigorous form of a full environmental assessment) to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment in November 2003 have been significantly altered. This was due to the government instructing Ontario Power Generation to stop participating in projects which use more environmentally acceptable generations systems, such as co-generation. Originally, the plant was described as two identical 275 MW power train systems, each comprising a 175 MW GE 7FA gas turbine generator, and other equipment. This proposed configuration was capable of producing over 272,000 kilograms per hour of steam for district heating. This design would, according to a PEC newsletter, allow for the efficiency of the plant to be “about 55% compared to 35% for a typical fossil power plant” There were also plans to include “Canada’s largest solar array” capable of producing “hundreds of kilowatts” though no actual specification seems to have ever been given.

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