The McCormick generating station is a dam and power station built on the Manicouagan river by the ''Quebec & Ontario Paper Company'' and the ''Canadian British Aluminium Company'' west of

Baie-Comeau Baie-Comeau () is a city in the Côte-Nord region of the province of Quebec, Canada. It is located on the shores of the St. Lawrence River, and is the seat of Manicouagan Regional County Municipality. It is near the mouth of the Manicouagan Ri ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, Canada. It is named after colonel Robert R. McCormick (1880–1955), who owned and published the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

''. At the time of its commissioning in 1952, the plant contained two 55,000-hp (41.8 MW) turbines, which provided power to the

paper mill A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp, old rags, and other ingredients. Prior to the invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt ...

, then owned by the American newspaper. The McCormick plant sits next to

Hydro-Québec Hydro-Québec () is a Canadian Crown corporations of Canada#Quebec, Crown corporation public utility headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. It manages the electricity generation, generation, electric power transmission, transmission and electricity ...

Manic-1 Manic-1 is a hydroelectric power station and dam at the mouth of the Manicouagan River west of Baie-Comeau, Quebec, Canada. The power station was commissioned between 1966 and 1967 and producing 184 MW, it is the smallest of the Manicouagan-Outar ...

generating station and the two plants share the same

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

. Its installed capacity has expanded over time to its current 335 MW capacity.

History

As early as 1955, the Manicouagan Power Company planned its first expansion by adding three 60,000 h.p. (44.8 MW) turbines, increasing the rated capacity to 292,400 h.p. (218 MW). The plant expansion was facilitated by a C$29 million regulation dam built by Hydro-Québec downstream from Sainte-Anne Lake, on the Toulnustouc River and the upgraded facility was completed in 1959. Subsequently, two additional 62.5-MW units were installed at the station in 1964, bringing the total installed capacity to 343 MW. Various upgrade projects have increased the installed capacity to 379 MW. For over 50 years, McCormick generated power for the Baie-Comeau pulp and paper and

aluminium smelting Aluminium smelting is the process of extracting aluminium from its oxide, alumina, generally by the Hall-Héroult process. Alumina is extracted from the ore bauxite by means of the Bayer process at an alumina refinery. This is an electroly ...

operations of its two

shareholder A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of corporate stock refers to an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the ...

AbitibiBowater Resolute Forest Products (French: ''Produits forestiers Résolu''), formerly known as AbitibiBowater Inc., is a Canada-based pulp and paper company. Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, the company was formed in 2007 by the merger of Bowater and ...

(60%) and

Alcoa Alcoa Corporation (an acronym for "Aluminum Company of America") is an American industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary alu ...

(40%). As a self generation facility, the private plant was exempt from the nationalization of the Quebec electric industry under the Hydro-Québec umbrella in 1962-1963. Forced to reorganize under bankruptcy protection, AbitibiBowater was forced to sell its 60% share of the plant to a subsidiary of Hydro-Québec, HQ Manicouagan. The C$615 million transaction was completed in December 2009.

History

See also

Notes

Further reading