Lennox Generating Station is a

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

- and

fuel oil Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil, marine fuel oil (MFO), bun ...

- fired power station in Lennox and Addington County,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Owned and operated by

Ontario Power Generation Ontario Power Generation Inc. (OPG) is a Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation and "government business enterprise" that is responsible for approximately half of the electricity generation in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is w ...

, it is situated on

Highway 33 The following highways are numbered 33: International * Asian Highway 33 * European route E33 Australia * South Arm Highway (Tasmania) Canada * Alberta Highway 33 * British Columbia Highway 33 * Bedford Bypass, also known as Nova Scotia Tr ...

on the north shore of

Lake Ontario Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border sp ...

, west of Bath, Ontario. It is the largest

natural gas power station A gas-fired power plant or gas-fired power station or natural gas power plant is a thermal power station which burns natural gas to generate electricity. Natural gas power stations generate almost a quarter of world electricity and a signifi ...

in Canada by installed capacity. In the 1970s, Lennox was a solely oil-fired plant in an era of rising oil prices. Oil is delivered by tanker cars via a spur of the Montreal-Kingston-Toronto

CN Rail The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I railroad, Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern United States, M ...

line. From 1982 to 1987 the plant was placed in reserve to surplus power in Ontario. In 1997, the plant was converted to operate with either heavy oil or natural gas. In 2008, the plant obtained regulatory approval for an

ozone Ozone (), or trioxygen, is an inorganic molecule with the chemical formula . It is a pale blue gas with a distinctively pungent smell. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic allotrope , breaking down in the lo ...

generation system to control zebra mussel fouling of service water intake pipes. As of 2007, Lennox represented 50% of Ontario installed generation capacity east of the

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

zone. When operating at full capacity, the plant claims to be the largest user of natural gas in Ontario. The facility is operated solely at times of peak load; the base load for the Ottawa-Toronto region is supplied by

Pickering Pickering may refer to: Places Antarctica * Pickering Nunataks, Alexander Island Australia * Pickering, South Australia, the original name (1872–1940) of the town of Wool Bay * Pickering Brook, Western Australia, Australia Canada * Pic ...

and

Darlington Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. The River Skerne flows through the town; it is a tributary of the River Tees. The Tees itself flows south of the town. In the 19th century, Darlington underwen ...

stations in

Durham Region The Regional Municipality of Durham (), informally referred to as Durham Region, is a regional municipality in Southern Ontario, Canada. Located east of Toronto and the Regional Municipality of York, Durham forms the east-end of the Greater Toron ...

and by an asynchronous interconnection with

Hydro-Québec Hydro-Québec is a public utility that manages the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in the Canadian province of Quebec, as well as the export of power to portions of the Northeast United States. It was established by the ...

which has served

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

since 2010. It is common to operate on natural gas during the summer season and switch to oil in the winter, when demand is high for gas.

Description

The Lennox Generating Station consists of: *4 535 MW units *2 smokestacks - each tall. In 2012, Ontario's government announced an additional 900-megawatt

TransCanada Energy TC Energy Corporation (formerly TransCanada Corporation) is a major North American energy company, based in the TC Energy Tower building in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, that develops and operates energy infrastructure in Canada, the United States, a ...

natural gas plant to be built at the Lennox Generating Station site; the project was originally planned for

Oakville, Ontario Oakville is a town in Regional Municipality of Halton, Halton Region, Ontario, Canada. It is located on Lake Ontario between Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, Hamilton. At its Canada 2021 Census, 2021 census population of 213,759, it is List of tow ...

but the location was changed in 2010 as part of a controversial government decision to relocate it and another gas-fired power plant. While estimates vary, the additional costs to transport natural gas eastward and generated power westward are expected to represent hundreds of millions of dollars over the lifetime of the new generation plant; one report claims $675 million. The relocation of this proposed plant, and another proposed for

Mississauga Mississauga ( ), historically known as Toronto Township, is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is situated on the shores of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, adjoining the western border of Toronto. With a popul ...

but displaced to Sarnia's

Lambton Generating Station The Lambton Generating Station was a Fossil fuel power plant, coal-fuelled power plant located on the St. Clair River near Corunna, Ontario#Communities, Corunna, Ontario, delivering up to 950 Watt#Megawatt, MW of Electric power, power to the ...

, were key political issues in

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

and 2014 Ontario elections. As of 2012, the site employed 160 people; an additional 25 permanent jobs will be added as a result of the 900MW expansion.

Emissions

*Calculated figures for CO₂e are rounded to the nearest tonne.

References

{{Fossil fuel power ON Natural gas-fired power stations in Ontario Oil-fired power stations in Ontario Ontario Power Generation 1976 establishments in Ontario Buildings and structures in Lennox and Addington County

Description

Emissions

See also

References