Oosterhoff says nuclear still possibility at former LGS site

Blake Ellis & Heather Wright/The Independent

The Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries Sam Oosterhoff was blunt: the five rejected proposals for natural gas powered electricity plants in St. Clair Township were simply not competitive. But he says a small nuclear generator at Courtright is still a possibility.

Oosterhoff was the keynote speaker at the Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership (SLEP) annual general meeting Tuesday in Camlachie. His visit came just 11 days after the St. Clair projects were rejected in the bidding process.

The province put out a call for large power projects in 2025, saying Ontario will need 75 per cent more electricity by 2050.
Companies interested in generating some of the 600 megawatts the Independent Electricity System Operator needed, flocked to St. Clair.

The township council supported five different proposals for natural gas-powered electricity plants in the community; Riverside Power Plant, the expansion to the Greenfield Energy Centre, a 250 megawatt plant by newcomer Vogtech Renewables, an expansion at the St. Clair Energy Centre on Petrolia Line, and one Eastern Power. Combined could have generate 1,880 megawatts, if they were approved.

June 12, Oosterhoff, announced three battery storage projects – in Simcoe, Napanee and near Kenora – holding 640 megawatts of energy for use during peak energy needs.

The move frustrated St. Clair Township Mayor Jeff Agar who was on record as wanting the township to be “the gas turbine capital of Ontario.” He was particularly concerned the project by Ontario Power Generation subsidiary Atura at the old LGS site was shelved.

“In my mind, it was a good time for our provincial government to make it right after the previous government shut down our coal-fired plant.

“The Atura proposal was a great fit for jobs, trades and the fab shops in our area,” Agar wrote in a social media post.
Agar continued saying the OPG site “desperately needs to be brought back to life, not only for St. Clair Township but for the county as a whole.”

Agar added he has told the Energy Minister if the province was not going to do anything with the site, they should sell it to St. Clair Township to “have it opened for business very quickly.

“I am very disappointed that a few board members of the IESO said no to this project. They most likely do not have an idea of where St. Clair Township is located.”

Tuesday, SLEP CEO Matthew Slotwinski, who questioned whether it would be more appropriate for the Ministry of Energy to make these decisions instead of IESO.

Oosterhoff defended the IESO saying it is that organization’s job to procure new power. Even though it is independent, it does receive its mandate and letters of direction from the Minister of Energy.

“One of those letters of directions was to enter into new routes and new procurements for both energy generation and energy capacity,” said Oosterhoff, saying one of the key principles of the bidding process is to “use the competitive tension that the market creates to drive down prices.”

Oosterhoff says that was not happening under the previous Liberal government, which used “ideological approaches to energy policy.”

The Liberal government, he said, signed bad deals that were 10 times higher than the market rate.

“In the 2012 era, around then, they were signing at some point contracts that were 88 cents a kilowatt hour for solar when the market rate was 8.8,” said Oosterhoff.

The government went back and renegotiated thousands of those individual contracts and realized a 30 percent reduction on many of them, Oosterhoff said,

“But still, many of those contracts are inflating our electricity bills.”

The second principle of the bid process is what the associate minister called technology agnostic. “It means we don’t actually care who is going to bid in and what kind of project they are going to bid in, as long as they are producing reliable, affordable and energy that is going to meet the needs of communities,” said Oosterhoff, adding the province will still be looking for more power.

“We were intentional about saying we’re not going to preclude anyone from bidding, but we are going to let the best resource win, and in this case it happened to be battery,” said Oosterhoff.

But there could be another St. Clair project possible. The Minister the former Lambton Generation site at Courtright is one of three sites to be shortlisted for possible nuclear components.

“We won’t proceed unless we have full consultation and support from the local community and from Indigenous parties,” said Oosterhoff. “But we know there is a huge opportunity here.”

While the province says there will be further calls for more electricity production, the IESO’s 2026 forecast indicates there isn’t an urgent, immediate need.

“Thousands of megawatts of battery storage and natural gas-fired generation have been competitively procured in recent years, meaning Ontario will not have significant incremental capacity needs until the mid-2030s,” the report says.

The IESO forecast says there are now a variety of ways to meet power demands including nuclear projects already underway and natural gas generation plants planned to run below capability can produce more power as necessary.