News & Events

Check this section for Yukon Energy's latest news and coming events.

If you have questions about any of the information posted here, please contact:

Lisa Wiklund
Manager, Community Relations
Yukon Energy Corporation
Phone: (867) 393-5398
Email: Lisa.Wiklund@yec.yk.ca

Community Involvement, Environment
Aug 27, 2012  2

It Takes a Channel to Raise a Family

As part of our commitment to the environment and our permitting requirements for the Mayo B project, we have constructed a salmon rearing channel in the lower Mayo River. The work has been taking place over the last couple of months and it’s now complete. The 1,000 metre long channel was designed to provide high quality fish habitat for juvenile Chinook salmon and other fish species. Water for the channel comes from the Mayo B plant and is available all year, even when the plant is not operating. The channel area will also include a foot trail with interpretive signage regarding the ecology and cultural history of the region. The trail should be accessible to the public starting next year. On its first day of operation several whitefish and grayling were already observed in several upstream pools. Once bugs start to populate the area we expect many salmon fry/fingerlings will make seasonal use of the channel.  The channel is not intended to provide habitat for spawning adult salmon, although we will monitor it for such occurrences. Below are some photos of the channel construction. 1) Channel construction with an excavator 2) Completed channel 3) Aerial of part of the channel (seen on the right side of the photo). Photo credit: Environmental Dynamics Inc.

Energy Supply
Aug 28, 2012  2

Testing Small-Scale Solar Technology

Our Whitehorse Rapids fishladder has a new addition. There's now an array of solar panels attached to the visitor building. This is a pilot project designed to test solar technology on a small (residential) scale. We will share the information we collect with Yukoners interested in exploring solar technology for their own homes. The panels are expected to produce on average 2,000 kilowatt hours a year, enough to power a substantial part of the fishladder visitor building. While the panels are up, this is still a work in progress. The next step is to install the dataloggers that will collect information about how much power is being generated at any given time. The fishladder visitor building uses on average 52 kilowatt hours a day, or almost 19 megawatt hours a year.  
Energy Supply
Sep 06, 2012  Comment

Updating You on our Southern Lakes Work

In keeping with our commitment to provide regular updates on our work to find new sources of renewable energy, we wanted to share this update with you on the Southern Lakes Enhancement Storage Concept. As always, we welcome your questions and comments.
Power Outage Updates
Sep 06, 2012  Comment

Last Night’s Power Outage

Yesterday's high winds were the cause of an outage last evening in several Yukon communities. The winds cause a tree to blow onto our line between Carmacks and Faro. Power went out around 6:15 p.m. in Faro, Dawson, Mayo, Elsa/Keno, Stewart Crossing, Ross River, Pelly Crossing, Drury Creek, Little Salmon, Moose Creek, Partridge Creek, and Deep Creek. Power was restored to most areas within an hour and a half (and much sooner in some communities) using back up diesel. The Faro mine, some Northwestel sites, and a few cottages at Drury Creek and Little Salmon remain without power. Crews are currently working to remove the tree, and all customers should be back on the hydro grid within the next hour. We apologize for the difficulties this outage may have caused.
News
Sep 20, 2012  Comment

Last Night’s Outage

 As you are likely aware, there was a Yukon-grid wide outage last night. Power went out just after 11 p.m. Most customers had power restored by 3 a.m. We are currently investigating the cause. We want to apologize for any difficulties this outage caused you. 
News
Sep 20, 2012  Comment

Outage Update

 We can now confirm that last night's outage was because of a tree that blew on one of our lines in the Whitehorse area. The tree has been removed and our system is back to normal.
Energy Supply, Environment
Sep 24, 2012  Comment

What the Glaciers Are Telling Us - Part 2

You might recall that last year, we hired scientists from the Yukon's Northern Climate ExChange, the University of Alberta and the Yukon Geological Survey to gather information on the expected impacts of climate change on the glaciers that feed our hydro systems. The report is available for you to read on-line. The report pointed out a number of areas where there were information gaps.  In particular, it suggested that more study be done of the Llewellyn Glacier due to its large size and potentially high sensitivity to climate change. Another recommendation was to focus on how snow conditions might change with continued warming. We have taken that advice and are now working with the same organizations on the next phase of our glacier research. Scientists have installed two monitoring stations in the Fantail River basin - the headwaters of the Yukon River - close to Atlin, B.C. The stations will record information such as air temperature, precipitation (both rain and snow) and solar radiation. They'll track changes in the weather both in the medium and long term. By having a network of long-term weather observation stations, the researchers will be able to recognize the differences between long-term climatic changes and year-to-year or cycle-to-cycle weather variations.   The Yukon Research Centre at Yukon College has written an article that provides more detail on the work being done. We think you'll find it an interesting read. Below are photos of the field crew installing one of the monitoring stations at a site on the Upper Fantail. Photo credit: Lacia Kinnear/Yukon Research Centre.

Energy Supply, Reliability
Sep 26, 2012  Comment

Breathing New Life into an Old Substation

We've talked alot about the fact that we have a new power station in Mayo (Mayo B). However you may not know that we've devoted a lot of time over the last two years refurbishing our Mayo substation. The work is almost complete; the substation should be on-line in about a month or so. Substations are a critial part of our infrastructure. They transform voltage from high to low, or from low to high so that generated power can be properly routed to where it is needed. Think of them as traffic circles for electricity. In this case, all the power coming from both our Mayo A and Mayo B hydro facilities will be routed so that it can be transmitted to any and all communities connected to the Yukon grid. Our Mayo substation was at the end of its life and needed upgrading, especially with Mayo B online. Most of the outside structural and electrical work is done, and we are just waiting for the new control building to arrive. It should be on site within the next week or two. Below are a couple of photos of the substation construction. Photo credit: F & M Installations, the major contractor on this project.  Other major work taking place at our Mayo facilities includes refurbishing the spillway gates at the Wareham Lake dam (scheduled for completion by late October) and installing a new headgate (also scheduled for completion in October). The spillway gates control the release of water from a dam and a headgate controls the flow of water to a hydro generator. The aim of most of the work being done in Mayo is to improve reliability and reduce the number of outages.
Community Involvement
Sep 27, 2012  Comment

Sharing What We Know

We love giving tours of our facilities. Each year we offer tours of our Whitehorse plant to scores of elementary and high school students. We also give tours of our Dawson diesel plant and Mayo facilities, when staff is available to do so. We are not able to provide school tours of our Aishihik plant for safety reasons (it is an underground plant in a remote location with no easy access to immediate medical attention). If you are a teacher and wish to arrange a tour of our Whitehorse, Mayo or Dawson plants, please let us know. While most of our tours are for younger students, we recently had an opportunity to show off our new Mayo hydro plant and salmon rearing channels to a Renewable Resources Management class from Yukon College. This photo was taken by one of the members of the class.  
Safety
Oct 04, 2012  1

Kudos

We’d like to give a shout out today to our Manager of Health and Safety, Melanie Pettefer. She has been chosen to receive a safety excellence award from the BC/Yukon Region of the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering (CSSE). CSSE is the leading health, safety and environmental organization for professionals in Canada. The CSSE works with industry, governmental agencies, and other safety organizations to promote a greater awareness of health, safety, and environmental issues in workplaces and communities across Canada and around the world. The award recognizes Melanie’s commitment and passion for safety both in the work place and the community in general. This is the second feather in Melanie’s cap within a few days. Earlier this week, the Canadian Electricity Association presented Yukon Energy with an award for top safety performance among small Canadian utilities (fewer than 500 employees). It was in large part because of Melanie’s leadership that we have been able to achieve this status. While awards are always welcome, the big win for us is that under Melanie’s guidance, Yukon Energy has become a safer place to work. That’s something we can all celebrate.
Energy Conservation
Oct 04, 2012  Comment

Saving Electricity, Saving Money

If you live in Yukon, you will likely have received a flyer in your mailbox that provided an update on the work we are doing in the area of electricity conservation and efficiencies. If you didn't receive the flyer or didn't have a chance to read it, here is an online version for you. Yukon Electrical Company Limited and ourselves have almost completed a draft Electricity Conservation Plan, which we hope to submit to the Yukon Utilities Board this fall. Watch for updates coming soon.
General, Energy Supply
Oct 16, 2012  Comment

Getting Into Some Tight Spots!

Sometimes, working for Yukon Energy means squeezing into some pretty tight spots. Here are photos of our Leadhand of Hydro Maintenance, Jim Petelski, inspecting one of our new Mayo B generators (first photo) and working on our largest Whitehorse hydro unit.  Our staff undergo special training for working in confined spaces. All the same, it takes a special person to be comfortable in situations like this! By the way, we'd like to thank Alexco Resource for providing the required stand by confined space rescue team while we were doing our work inspecting the Mayo generators recently. Without Alexco’s rescue team making itself available, we would have had to mobilize a team from Whitehorse to Mayo at significant cost to Yukon Energy.  

General
Oct 22, 2012  Comment

Updating Your Address

We have been informed that the Faro post office has changed a number of residential post office box numbers. If you are one of the people affected, please provide your new address to Yukon Energy by either emailing pat.williams@yec.yk.ca or by phoning toll free 1-877-712-3375. Thanks very much.
Regulatory
Nov 05, 2012  Comment

Next Week’s Public Hearings

You may recall that in April of this year we filed an application with the Yukon Utilities Board (YUB) for our first retail rate increase since 1999. We asked for a 6.4 percent increase for all customer classes (residential, commercial, industrial and government) in 2012 and an additional 6.5 percent raise in 2013. The increases would impact both Yukon Energy and Yukon Electrical customers. The YUB is currently reviewing our request, although a decision won't come until sometime in 2013. In the meantime, it has allowed a 6.4 percent interim rate increase for 2012 and a 3.75 percent interim rate increase starting on January 1, 2013. Once the Utilities Board makes its ruling, these charges will be adjusted based on the final outcome (in other words, customers may be refunded some of the money if the YUB only gives us a portion of the increase we have asked for). The next step in this process takes place next week. The YUB is holding public hearings into our rate application. They are being held next Monday to Wednesday (Nov. 12 - 14) at the High Country Inn in Whitehorse. Any members of the public are welcome to attend the hearings as observers (official intervenors needed to notify the YUB of their intentions several months ago). While the proceedings can be technical in nature, we still encourage anyone who is interested to come to the hearings, as we think it will give you a better understanding of what we are trying to achieve and why we feel we need a rate increase. Obviously no one likes a rate increase, and over the last 13 years we’ve done everything possible to keep electricity costs low. In fact we were even able to secure a 2.47 percent rate decrease for our customers when the Minto mine came on-line. However there are several reasons why we believe a rate increase is necessary at this time: •Increased energy consumption in all sectors has strained Yukon Energy’s power grid, and has depleted the corporation’s surplus hydro. While our new hydro assets (Mayo B and the Aishihik third turbine) have helped address this problem, expensive diesel generation is still needed to supply an increasing share of the new demand. •The cost of keeping aging infrastructure efficient, up-to-date and safe for Yukoners has increased faster than electricity rates. •Inflation: thirteen years is a long time to go without a rate increase. In that time, salaries have gone up and the cost of our materials keeps climbing. The cost of living in Yukon has gone up more than 20 percent since the late 1990s. •Funding tomorrow’s energy: finding sufficient clean, affordable and reliable energy requires years of public and stakeholder consultation, research, engineering and project approval. All this work comes with a price tag. We hope to see you next week. In the meantime we are happy to try to answer any questions you may have about this process.
Billing
Nov 05, 2012  Comment

Investigating a High Winter Power Bill

No matter how careful you are, there's a good chance that you'll use more electricity during the winter months, especially if you have electric heat. Shorter days mean our lights are on longer, and we tend to use appliances such as electric stoves longer or more often. Winter is also when we plug in our vehicles, something that can be a big draw on power. If you receive a bill and you think it’s higher than it should be, we'd be happy to work with you to investigate the cause. But first, you can do a bit of sleuthing on your own. For instance, compare your usage. Look at how many kilowatts you consumed compared to other months to see if it has increased. There’s a graph on your bill that shows your consumption each month for the past year. Think about what may have been different in the last couple of months. For instance, did you have visitors in your home that might have accounted for higher energy usage (extra showers or higher washer/dryer and dishwasher use)? Have you recently used electronics such as portable space heaters, which draw a lot of power? If it’s around winter holidays such as Christmas, you might be baking more, using Christmas lights, your young adult children might be home from university, etc. Note that we have asked the Yukon Utilities Board to approve a rate increase of 6.5 percent in 2013, but it will be some time before we know if that will be granted (the YUB could approve the full amount of our request, a smaller percentage, or none at all). In the meantime the Utilities Board has granted an interim rate increase of 3.75 percent starting on January 1, 2013. We will notify you on this blog once we receive the Utilities Board's final ruling. If you’ve considered all these factors and still can’t determine what would have caused your bills to increase to the extent they have, please contact us by email at billing@yukonenergy.ca, call us at 1-877-712-3375 or 993-5565, or if you live in Dawson City, drop into our office.

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