History
During the first half of the 20th century, most electricity produced in Ontario came from hydroelectric stations. But by the early 1950s, most large hydroelectric sites were already under development and new power sources were required to meet the province’s growing appetite for electricity.
On the north shore of Lake Ontario, in what is now the City of Mississauga, 52 hectares of land were earmarked for a new thermal-electric plant that would help meet Ontario’s power demands and even provide system reserves. “The Lakeview Project” was underway by June, 1958, and quickly became a station of superlatives: its eight boilers were the largest ever installed in Canada; the 300,000 kilowatt generators the largest ever purchased by a Canadian utility; and its power transformers were the largest ever built in Canada.
On June 20, 1962, Ontario Premier John Robarts and Ontario Hydro chairman W. Ross Strike pushed the button to start up the first 300,000 kilowatt unit. Lakeview was the second thermal plant designed by Ontario Hydro. The Hearn Generating Station in Toronto opened several years before and served as a test bed for Lakeview. As the design and construction of progressed, the station would include two different types of boilers and three unique turbine designs. It is possible that Ontario Hydro had a dispute with equipment suppliers in the early 1960s which caused the unusual equipment choices. The switch from Parsons as a turbine supplier to AEI was unusual since the AEI turbine generators on units 3-6 were (50 cycle) machines. They would require heavy weights attached to overcome turbine vibration at the higher (60 cycle) speeds in Canada. These were the only AEI turbines installed at Ontario Hydro. Units 5 & 6 operated until the station closed (40 years)
The station would reach 2400 MW by 1968, surpassed only by the Nanticoke Generating Station (4096 MW) near Port Dover, in the late 1970s. During the late 1960s and 1970s, the station operated to full capacity as an eight-unit baseload plant, meeting about 17% of Ontario’s electricity needs. In the early 1980s, Lakeview worked at full capacity after problems at Pickering in August 1983 resulted in a brief power shortage. In the early 1990s the station was partially overhauled. A surplus of capacity led to the mothballing of four units. The station continued to play an important role as a four-unit peaking plant, providing an adequate and reliable electricity supply when consumer demands were highest in the morning and around the dinner hour – and in the summer and winter. This role was especially critical on hot days when air conditioning use drove up electricity demand.
Following provincial government policy to phase out Ontario Power Generation’s six coal-fired generating stations by the end of 2007, Lakeview Generating Station ceased operations on Saturday, April 30, 2005 after 43 years. Lakeview and its employees made a highly significant contribution to the energy needs of the province, and particularly to the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
Read more about this topic: Lakeview Generating Station
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