ATCO Power Canada Ltd. on May 24 asked the Alberta Utilities Commission for a slight rollback in the May 31 deadline to complete a 7.1-MW power plant.
ATCO is the operator of a temporary power plant located at Apache Canada Ltd.’s House Mountain Gas Plant in the Slave Lake area. On March 30 of this year, the commission approved ATCO to construct and operate a 7.1‐MW natural gas-fired permanent plant to replace the temporary plant. That approval included a condition that construction of the power plant be completed by May 31 of this year.
ATCO had an anticipated in‐service date of May 1 for the permanent plant, to align with the expiration of an Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act (EPEA) approval issued by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) to Apache for the temporary plant. This approval was subsequently amended to reflect the design and operations of the permanent plant. An EPEA amendment application was submitted to the AER on Jan. 4, 2016.
Unfortunately, due to approximately a month delay in receipt of the AER EPEA approval, the commencement of construction was also delayed, resulting in a mid‐June 2016 anticipated in‐service date, said ATCO. So it asked for an extension to June 30 on the construction completion deadline. Construction efforts at House Mountain are on‐going and ATCO noted that it is tracking towards an in‐service date of around June 15.
