Residents of N.W.T.’s South Slave region may not know it yet but the Talston Hydroelectric station is back up and running after an almost two-year shutdown.
Doug Prendergast, Talston’s communications manager, told True North FM it’s a long-anticipated accomplishment since the station was closed in May 2023 for a significant overhaul.
“I anticipate that a number of people will be very happy that we’re now powering the South Slave with renewable hydro as opposed to the more expensive greenhouse gas emitting diesel generation that we had been using for backup power since the Tulston overhaul began,” explained Prendergast.
Prendergast said hydropower was restored to “different communities at various times” across the South Slave area gradually over the past “several weeks.”
“Fort Resolution was the last community that was added to the hydro system, that began on Saturday and then we normally want the system to run for a period of time before we can conclude that everything is working as it should and that’s why we made the announcement today,” said Prendergast.
GNWT Minister Caroline Wawzonek, who is responsible for overseeing the Northwest Territories Power Corporation and Cory Strang, president and CEO of the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, officially made the announcement today.
“The overhaul of the Taltson Hydroelectric Facility will help to improve reliability, avoiding future unplanned outages. Extending the life of an existing asset like Taltson is an economical way to ensure that South Slave communities continue to be powered by clean hydro for the next 50 – 60 years,” said Minister Wawzonek.
In their announcement today, Northwest Territories Power Corporation said that so far the project has received over $17.8 million from the federal government through the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program. They said the total cost for the overhaul is expected to be approximately $97.8 million. This includes $70 million in project costs and about $45 million in fuel and other operational costs needed “to keep the lights in the South Slave on” while the Taltson Hydro plant was closed.
The hydro facility is now the source of primary power for Fort Smith, Fort Resolution, Hay River, Enterprise and K’atl’odeeche First Nation. According to the April 1 announcement, diesel generators will continue to provide backup power as needed.
Currently, the generation capacity of Taltson is 22 megawatts, which is an increase of 4 megawatts since the facility was shut down.
“During the overhaul as we installed the new parts into that unit, it allows the potential for a greater amount of electricity to be generated by that facility,” explained Prendergast.
Additional transmission and distribution infrastructure will have to be installed over the next “several years” in order to deliver the full capacity of that power to customers, said Prendergast.
Once that happens the system will be monitored to ensure that the infrastructure delivering power from the hydro-generation source to customers is able to handle that larger capacity, he said.
Prendergast explained that the increase in the station’s hydro-capacity will potentially generate increased electrical sales.
“If opportunities arise for greater electricity sales, we’re able to provide that, we will have an extra 4 megawatts of electricity that’s available for sale to customers to customers such as industry. The Pine Point mine is one possible customer in the future,” said Prendergast.
True North FM asked Prendergast whether the return to hydropower will translate into rate relief for residents. Prendergast explained that a rate application has already been submitted to the public utilities board and they hope to hear a decision by May.
In today’s announcement, Strang called the Taltson overhaul project “one of the largest and most complex projects” in the corporation’s history.
“It faced many challenges, but our team of employees and contractors got the job done. Federal funding support was critical to making this project happen,” said Strang.
The overhaul included the replacement of key components like the turbine and turbine shaft, rotor and generator. Ancillary plant equipment such as control panels and vibration monitoring equipment was also upgraded
The project faced many challenges including a seven-week evacuation of the site because of wildfires in 2023.
Then issues were identified during the commissioning process in February 2024 and in early 2025
“Initially we had an alignment issue, which resulted in a delay of a number of months and then we’ve resolved that. And during commissioning this winter, we found some issues with vibrations that were not anticipated so we needed to get to the bottom of that. That’s been resolved on an interim level,” said Prendergast.
According to today’s announcement, sometime this summer the station will stop operations temporarily to install a permanent solution to the identified issue.
The Taltson Hydroelectric Facility was first built to support the Pine Point Mine in 1965, before expanding services to Fort Smith and Fort Resolution. In 1986, the Talston facility began providing hydropower to other communities in the South Slave Lake region.
