As names for hearings go, "Needs For and Alternatives To" (NFAT) must pretty much take the cake for ordinary words turned into awkward sounding bureaucratic speak. Be that as it may, the upcoming Needs For and Alternatives To Manitoba Public Utilities Board (PUB) hearing early next year in relation to Manitoba Hydro's proposed preferred development plan for major new hydro-electric generation by building the $16.4 billion Keeyask and Conawapa Generating Stations and Canada-United States interconnection facilities should be of interest to all Manitobans, especially those of us here in Northern Manitoba.
The planned 695-MW Keeyask Generating Station on the Nelson River, downstream from Split Lake, and 1,485-MW Conawapa Generating Station, on the Lower Nelson River, downstream of Gillam, are both much larger than the recently completed 200-MW Wuskwatim Generating Station. Conawapa, if it is built, will be the largest hydro-electric project in Northern Manitoba.
Manitoba Hydro and representatives from the Tataskweyak Cree Nation, War Lake First Nation, Fox Lake Cree Nation, and York Factory First Nation signed the Joint Keeyask Development Agreement at Split Lake for the Keeyask Generating Station in 2009. Under the agreement Manitoba Hydro will provide administrative and management services for the project and will own at least 75 per cent of the equity. The four First Nations will collectively have the right to own up to 25 per cent of the partnership.
On Feb. 28, 2007 Fox Lake Cree Nation and Manitoba Hydro signed a "process agreement" for the Conawapa Generating Station. The agreement sets out a process and funding mechanism for Fox Lake Cree Nation's participation in planning and consultation on the development of Conawapa, including project description, environmental and regulatory matters, training, employment and business opportunities, and the negotiation of adverse effects arrangements.
The commercial arrangements between Manitoba Hydro and its aboriginal partners for the development of the proposed Keeyask and Conawapa hydro-electric generating facilities and aboriginal consultation pursuant to Section 35 of the Constitution Act are not in the scope of the NFAT, nor is the Bipole III transmission line and converter station project.
The province notified Manitoba Hydro on Jan. 13, 2011 of its intention to carry out a public Needs For and Alternatives To review and assessment. Last Nov. 12, Dave Chomiak, the minister of innovation, energy and mines and the minister charged with the administration of The Manitoba Hydro Act, announced it would be the Manitoba Public Utilities Board conducting the NFAT under the authority of Section 107 of The Public Utilities Board Act.
Intervenors, including the Public Interest Law Centre, Manitoba branch of the Consumers' Association of Canada and the Interchurch Council on Hydropower, think demand-size management through more emphasis on energy conservation is in order.
The Interchurch Council on Hydropower, made up of official representatives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (Manitoba/Northwestern Ontario Synod), Mennonite Central Committee Manitoba, United Church of Canada (Conference of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario) and All Native Circle Conference, and Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Winnipeg (but not the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas where both Keeyask and Conawapa would be situated) wrote to the Manitoba Public Utilities Board in June, suggesting energy conservation is a well-established supply option for utilities around the world and "might be a cheaper, greener, less risky way to meet Manitoba's energy needs." The council said energy conservation seems to be ignored by Manitoba Hydro as an alternative to Keeyask and Conawapa.
The provincial NDP government says Manitoba will run out of power in less than a decade in 2022 the way things stand now. To prevent brownouts and fulfil export contracts with Wisconsin and Minnesota, Keeyask and then Conawapa need to be built on the Nelson River, along with a new 750-MW power line interconnection to the United States, which would also let Manitoba import power, if needed, the province says. Minnesota and Wisconsin have signed term sheet, power sale, seasonal diversity and energy exchange agreement deals for more than $5.5 billion in hydro-electricity exports to Northern States Power of Minneapolis and Wisconsin Public Service from Manitoba Hydro.
The Needs For and Alternatives To review and assessment by the Manitoba Public Utilities Board will examine the accuracy and reasonableness of the modeling of export contract sale prices, terms, conditions, scheduling provisions, export transmission costs, and the reasonableness of projected revenues.
It will also look at the "reasonableness of forecasted critical inputs including construction costs, opportunity export revenues, future fuel prices, electricity market price forecasts, the determinants of those values, and export volumes; the reasonableness of the scope and evaluation of risks and the benefits proposed to arise from the development and the reasonableness and the reliability of Manitoba Hydro's interpretation of the most likely future outcomes as a result of climate changes, interest rate fluctuations, export market prices, domestic load fluctuations, droughts, competing technologies, fuel prices, carbon pricing, technology developments, economic conditions, Hydro's transmission positions and other relevant factors."
