Volume 2, Issue 3
2020 Update: the Manitoba–Minnesota Transmission Project
Work on Manitoba Hydro’s Manitoba–Minnesota Transmission Project (MMTP) is moving ahead at full speed. In 2019 the utility saw a number of major milestones on the project, and 2020 will bring numerous others. MMTP is a 500-kilovolt transmission line that will connect with Minnesota Power’s Great Northern Transmission Line. It will strengthen the overall reliability of the province’s electricity supply, allow Manitoba Hydro to fulfill current export sales agreements, and provide increased import capability into Manitoba.
A high voltage test facility focused on customer service
What does high-voltage electrical equipment have in common with your cell phone? Rigorous testing before public release. And, like cell phone testing, facilities to test high-voltage equipment are rare and specialized. That’s why Manitoba Hydro built its own. Manitoba Hydro’s High Voltage Test Facility (HVTF) primarily serves the needs of Manitoba Hydro, it also provides testing services to other electrical utilities, heavy industry, and academic research institutions.
Capacity vs. energy: horsepower vs. fuel
Two terms that come up a lot in the electricity market are energy and capacity. They’re easy to confuse — capacity is measured in megawatts, gigawatts, or terawatts (MW, GW, TW) and energy is measured in megawatt-hours, gigawatt-hours, or terawatt-hours (MWh, GWh, TWh). But there’s an easy way to understand the difference: think about a car.
Grand Rapids Generating Station
Grand Rapids Generating Station stands alone as our only generating station on the Saskatchewan River, but that isn’t the only thing that makes it unique. Completed in 1965 with a capacity of 479 megawatts, Grand Rapids is our sole station to have its spillway structure located almost five kilometers away from its intake and powerhouse structures — rather than adjacent.
Mutual aid partners recognized in event at Manitoba Hydro’s Winnipeg HQ
On December 11, 2019, over 200 employees and guests gathered at Manitoba Hydro’s headquarters in Winnipeg to recognize efforts by staff from Manitoba Hydro and its mutual aid partners in responding to a large October 2019 winter storm. The storm caused tens of millions of dollars in damage to the utility’s transmission and distribution system, outages to hundreds of thousands of customers (some for up to several days), and marked the first time Manitoba Hydro has ever called on other utilities for mutual aid.