1 week Ago By [email protected] (Rob Ferguson)
Ontario’s highest paid civil servant, Ken Hartwick of Ontario Power Generation, is retiring at year’s end as the province plans more nuclear power to meet increasing demand for electricity. His replacement as president and chief executive is 25-year OPG veteran Nicolle Butcher, who as chief operating officer has overseen the Crown utility’s fleet of nuclear, hydroelectric, natural-gas powered and other generation facilities. Butcher becomes the first woman to helm OPG.
She will work in tandem with Hartwick, an accountant who had been with OPG nine years and , to ensure a “smooth transition” over the next seven weeks, said board chair Wendy Kei. Hartwick earned $1.9 million last year, according to the provincial government’s annual “sunshine list” of public servants making over $100,000 a year.
Butcher earned $894,783. Executives at Ontario Power Generation, the Crown-owned utility that keeps the lights on, Energy Minister Stephen Lecce said last month the province is developing a and a “significant expansion” of energy efficiency programs to meet a forecasted surge in demand for electricity by 2050. The province needs to add enough electricity generation capacity to power the equivalent of four-and-a-half cities the size of Toronto, according to projections from Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator showing the need for power will soar 75 per cent.
That’s because of a surge in energy-hungry data centres using artificial intelligence, population growth, increasing electrification of cars, public transit, home heating, electric vehicle battery plants and steelmaking, which is transitioning from coal-fired to electric arc furnaces. Lecce has not ruled out new nuclear plants or more reactors at existing nuclear power stations. “We’re going to need to bring forth additional options,” he told reporters Oct.
23. Darlington nuclear station is being refurbished, an expansion at the Bruce nuclear plant is planned, and OPG is seeking approval to refurbish the Pickering B nuclear plant to extend its life for decades. The company is also building a small modular reactor at Darlington.
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