The ownership of some of Northern Ontario’s hydroelectric infrastructure has changed hands, but their operation will remain as usual, according to the new parent company.
On April 11, FirstLight Power announced it had acquired H20 Power, which owns and operates eight hydroelectric facilities totalling more than 150 megawatts of generating capacity, three control dams, and 140 kilometres of transmission lines in Northern Ontario.
That includes facilities in or near Kenora, Fort Frances, Sturgeon Falls, Rainy River, Iroquois Falls, and Cochrane.
They’re operated remotely from Oshawa, Ont., and maintained locally by H2O Power.
Together, the assets make H20 Power Ontario’s third largest hydropower provider.
“We are proud to expand our operations into Canada and welcome the 43 talented members of the H2O Power team to our growing company,” Alicia Barton, president and CEO of FirstLight, said in a news release.
“2022 was a transformative year for FirstLight, and we anticipate that 2023 will be no different as we kick the year off with this exciting integration and renewed momentum to support our mission to build and optimize diversified, reliable, and cost-competitive clean energy assets to decarbonize electrical grids across North America.”
The company noted that H20 has invested more than $100 million over the last decade to upgrade its Northern Ontario assets, including turbine refurbishments, runner replacements, generator rewinds, and transformer replacements.
H20 Power has been majority-owned by PSP Investments since 2011. FirstLight, based in Burlington, MA, has been wholly owned by PSP Investments since 2016.
