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, Energy Conservation
Jun 22, 2011  Comment

Retire My Fridge

Yukoners can now save energy and money by getting rid of their old but working refrigerators and freezers. Yukon Energy and the Yukon government's Energy Solutions Centre are partnering on a fridge and freezer retirement program. Here's how it works: contact the Energy Solutions Centre (ESC) and tell them you have one or two old fridges or freezers that you'd like to get rid of. The appliances must be in current use and they must be five or more years old. ESC will arrange for up to two appliances to be picked up and taken to the landfill. They'll pay the landfill tipping fee and you'll receive $50 towards the cost of each new fridge or freezer that you purchase! Most homeowners aren't aware that it can cost $100 or more per year to run an older fridge. This program doesn't just give financial incentives off the top, but it also provides ongoing energy bill savings, as the new energy efficient appliances require less electricity. Call The Energy Solutions Centre at 393-7063 or toll free in Yukon at 1-800-661-0408 ext. 7063 to register for this program. You can visit their website to get further details.
Community Involvement, Energy Conservation
Jun 24, 2011  Comment

Talking Energy Conservation in Old Crow

It was the perfect start to our Yukon energy conservation tour. Representatives from the non-profit group One Change travelled to Old Crow yesterday with officials from Yukon Energy and Yukon Electrical Company Limited to kick-off a series of visits to 11 communities in the territory. The purpose was: 1) to find out what people feel should be included in a Yukon-wide energy conservation plan; and 2) to share energy conservation products and information that can help people save money on their electricity bills. People were generous with their time and their suggestions. For Old Crow, a fly-in community dependant almost entirely on diesel generation for its electricity needs (apart from one building that has solar panels), finding alternative energy sources is paramount. In particular, the local First Nation government is interested in seeing more energy efficient homes built, and is anxious to explore wind and solar possibilities. It was pointed out to us that most people still use the old incandescent light bulbs, because replacing them with more energy efficient lighting is just too expensive. All these comments will be taken into account as we work to create a Yukon energy conservation plan. We thank the people of Old Crow for taking the time to meet with us, and we look forward to hearing what Yukoners in other communities have to say. For people in Faro, we hope to see you today from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the recreation centre. Photos below by Justin Kennedy: 1) walking about town giving away bags of energy conservation products and information; 2) Stuart Hickox, President of One Change; 3) Yukon Energy's Shannon Mallory hands out energy conservation products and talks to two Old Crow residents about ways of saving electricity.

Power Outage Updates
Jun 27, 2011  Comment

Yesterday’s Power Outage

An unfortunate set of circumstances resulted in an outage yesterday in Mayo, Keno, Elsa, Stewart Crossing, and Dawson City. Power went out on the Mayo-Dawson line at 3:43 p.m. as a result of what we believe was a lightning strike. Power was restored to the town of Dawson seven minutes later (six minutes in one section of town and seven minutes in the other) using the Dawson back-up diesels. However power didn’t come back on in the Hunker Creek industrial area until 7:45 p.m. A problem on what is known as the ‘express feeder’ that serves Hunker Creek prevented us from re-energizing that section of line. While that feeder is now working fine, we will be sending a crew there this week to investigate the problem. In Mayo, Keno and Elsa power also took considerably longer to be restored. Normally in a Mayo outage we would use our back-up diesels in the community. For whatever reason, the diesels did not work last night. We would have fed Mayo using Dawson diesel, but the issue on the Hunker Creek portion of the line prevented us from doing that. Power was restored to Mayo at 7:42 last night and to Elsa and Keno, including the Alexco mine, at 9:20 p.m. We have just recently energized the Carmacks-Stewart line and have been feeding Mayo and Dawson with hydro from the Whitehorse-Aishihik-Faro grid for the last several days. However we are still fine tuning the protection equipment at our Stewart Crossing substation. During this outage, the protections did not work as we expected them to and so we had to send someone to Stewart Crossing to manually close the breaker, allowing us to again feed Mayo, Elsa, Keno and Stewart Crossing with hydro power from Whitehorse. This morning, all our customers are back on hydro power from our Whitehorse and Aishihik plants. Today crews will be investigating the cause of the Mayo diesel problem, and then the necessary repairs will be made. The protections at the Stewart Crossing substation will be adjusted so that in another outage on the Mayo-Dawson line, hydro power should continue to be delivered from the southern portion of the Yukon grid. We are also sending another back-up diesel to Mayo this week. According to the weather forecast we could see more lightning activity in the Mayo/Dawson area today. We are watching closely and are doing everything we can to prepare for another potential outage. We sincerely apologize to those who were affected by the power outage.  
Energy Supply
Jun 28, 2011  Comment

Getting Hammered by Lightning

Once again yesterday there were power outages as a result of lightning. Here are the details: There was a lightning strike on our line between Stewart Crossing and the Minto mine at 4:05 p.m. It caused an outage in Dawson, Mayo, Keno, Elsa, Stewart Crossing, and the Minto mine. There was also a brief outage at the Minto mine and Porter Creek, Crestview, and McPherson subdivisions in Whitehorse. Minto switched to their back-up diesels so they were only off a few minutes, as were the Whitehorse customers. Power was restored to the town of Dawson within six minutes. After we got Dawson back on using the back-up diesels in the community, we decided to keep them on diesel instead of putting them back on the grid, since there was still a lot of lightning activity. It turned out to be a very good decision, because there was a second lightning strike last evening at 6:36 which would have again caused Dawson to lose power. Since they were islanded from the grid, their power was not affected. We continued to keep them on diesel overnight as a precaution. We had planned to take them off diesel this morning, but Northwestel’s phone and internet services to Dawson are down (again because of lightning strikes) and until we have communications with our staff we can’t switch Dawson City back on to the grid. In terms of the rest of the outage area (the Hunker Creek area outside of Dawson, and the Mayo/Keno/Elsa area), power was off for a total of about 2 and a half hours. Power came back on at 6:13 p.m. but the second lightning strike caused it to go off again about 20 minutes later. Power was restored the second time at 6:56 p.m. We had the same issues with yesterday’s outage that we had on Sunday in that our Mayo diesels were not available to us and there was an issue with the express feeder to Hunker Creek. Our crews had been on their way to Dawson and Mayo to address the problems from Sunday’s outage when power went out yesterday and they had to turn around so they could help with the restoration. Those crews plan to perform the repairs today that they had expected to do yesterday. All communities except Dawson are back on the grid this morning. If you have any influence at all over the weather gods, please ask them to give us a lightning free day so we can do the work we need to do on our northern system! Again, we apologize to everyone who was affected by yesterday's outages.
News
Jun 29, 2011  Comment

Our Energy Conservation Tour Comes to Whitehorse

Yesterday our One Change energy conservation tour took us to Main Street in Whitehorse. We had lots of people stop by to pick up some free energy saving products, experience our interactive displays, and fill out a questionnaire about what they'd like to see included in an energy conservation plan. Today the team moves on to Burwash Landing, and tomorrow they'll be in Haines Junction (find the full schedule here). They'll be back in Whitehorse on Canada Day. Look for them at Shipyards Park. Also watch for the walking, talking light bulb that will be in the Canada Day parade. Here are a few shots from yesterday. 1, 2 and 3) One Change representatives and Yukon Energy staff talk to local residents; 4) a couple tries out a device that shows the amount of power it takes for a standard incandescent lightbulb as opposed to a compact florescent (CFL) bulb. Photos: www.archbould.com  
Community Involvement, Energy Conservation
Jun 30, 2011  Comment

Energy Conservation Kids Ed-Venture

Yukon Energy and the Yukon Conservation Society are teaming up to provide an afternoon of learning and fun, focused on energy conservation and electricity. This program is for children between the ages of three and five. Children must be accompanied by a parent (two children per parent). There is no cost to families. When: Tuesday July 12th ~ 2 to 3:30 p.m. Location: 302 Hawkins Street, Whitehorse in the Yukon Conservation Society's backyard wall tent There'll be activities, songs, snacks, and take-home goodies. Space is limited, so sign up today by calling 668-5678 or emailing ycsenergy@gmail.com
Energy Supply
Jul 04, 2011  Comment

Why the Deisel in Dawson?

Today's question: why is Dawson burning diesel now? With the Stewart tie-in there appears to be a lot of available hydro electricity on the Whitehorse-Aishihik-Faro grid. Why aren't we seeing that tie-in do its work? There was a great deal of lightning activity in the Dawson area last week. We had a number of outages as a result. Several days ago we made the decision to isolate Dawson City from the grid and use local diesel instead, to avoid any further outages for our customers there. Now that the lightning activity has subsided, we have put Dawson back on our transmission grid and there is no diesel being burned. The energy consumption chart you see on our website is currently being converted over to show that we now have one integrated grid, so the data you see there today is outdated. We will make the conversion as soon as possible so that once again you will be able to view near realtime data.
News
Jul 04, 2011  Comment

Reporting to You

Our 2010 Annual Report is now available. If you have any questions after reading it, please let us know.
Community Involvement, Energy Supply
Jul 05, 2011  Comment

Southern Lakes Public Meetings

Yukon Energy has two public meetings scheduled for the next week to update people on the Marsh Lake Enhanced Storage Concept. Wednesday July 6: 7:30 p.m. at the Tagish Community Club Tuesday July 12: 7 p.m. at the Marsh Lake Community Centre We will also spend some time at these meetings providing information on what we expect the peak summer lake levels will be this year.
Energy Supply
Jul 06, 2011  Comment

Downed Line

A downed high voltage transmission line just south of the sewage lagoons in Whitehorse caused a wide-spread power outage tonight. Power went out at just before 8 p.m. to several Yukon communities, including Whitehorse, south to Teslin, and north to communities on the Mayo to Dawson section of the grid. The Minto and Alexco mines were also affected. Haines Junction, Faro and Pelly Crossing were not affected and their power remained on. At the time of this blog posting (approximately 10:30 p.m.) crews were on their way to repair the downed line. We are still investigating what caused the line to come down. Most customers have now had their power restored. A rumour began this evening in Whitehorse that there had been a breach of our dam. That is not true. During a power outage we are not able to put water through our turbines, so we must spill it under our gates. This is standard procedure; it is one of the first things we do in any outage and that's what we did tonight. Watch this blog tomorrow for further details.
Energy Supply
Jul 07, 2011  Comment

More Information on Last Night’s Outage

Crews worked through the night to make repairs to a power pole structure and re-connect the downed high voltage transmission line that caused last night's outage. All service is back to normal, with grid communities being served by hydro from our Whitehorse and Aishihik hydro plants. A couple of questions have come out of last night's outage that we would like to address: 1. How often are the transmission lines and poles checked? We do annual aerial inspections (using a helicopter) of all our lines and poles. Any problems with the structures are identified and repaired. We recently inspected our Mayo to Dawson line and will fly our transmission system between Whitehorse and Aishihik, and Whitehorse and Faro/Ross River next week. This schedule was set even before last night's outage.  2. How did a rumour get started that the dam was breaking? We are not certain, although we have been told someone riding a bicycle in the Riverdale area noticed that we were spilling water and thought there was a breach in the dam. We want Yukoners to understand that during a power outage, once the first things we must do is start spilling water though the spill gates at our dam. That's because the water can't go through our turbines if they are not turning, and so we must spill it through our gates or the water would end up going over the top of our dam. That's obviously not something we want to have happen. Spilling water is standard operating procedure and we didn't do anything different in this regard during last night's outage than for any other outage.
Safety
Jul 07, 2011  1

Near Drowning at our Lewes Control Structure

This week there was a near tragedy at our Lewes River Control Structure just south of Whitehorse. A canoeing party of six in three canoes tried to go through the control gates, despite the prominent warning sign on the structure. The group set off from the boat launch up stream wearing their life jackets. However within a few minutes, for whatever reason, some of them removed their safety gear. Two of the canoes passed through one of our control gates without a problem, but the third canoe capsized. A female passenger was trapped under the water and our staff said it was several minutes before she was able to break free of the strong current. One of the other canoes came back for her and was able to pull her to safety. The second person who'd been in the capsized canoe was able to grab his life jacket and put it on before the current dragged him downstream, where he was rescued by his travelling companions.  Yukon Energy staff were working on the structure at the time but they were not able to reach the canoeists to provide assistance. Please, please help us get the message out that it is very dangerous to attempt to travel through the gates. There is a boat lock at the control structure and it should be used by everyone travelling in any kind of watercraft. We are planning a public information session at the control structure this summer to help people understand why they should not travel through the gates, and teach them how to use the boatlock. Watch this blog for details shortly.
Energy Supply
Jul 07, 2011  Comment

Today’s Outage

Power went out this afternoon at 13:41 to the following areas: The southern part of Porter Creek in Whitehorse Dawson City Mayo Alexco Mine Power was restored to almost everyone by 14:06 (Hunker Creek outside of Dawson City took a bit longer and was back on by 14:13). It appears the cause was an issue with generation at our Whitehorse plant but we are still investigating.  
Media Releases
Jun 23, 2011  Comment

One Change, Yukon Energy and Yukon Electrical Launch Campaign “Saving Energy Your Way!”

One Change today kicked off a unique campaign in Yukon designed to give residents a voice regarding future electricity-saving initiatives in their communities. The campaign, sponsored by Yukon Electrical Company Limited and Yukon Energy Corporation, begins today in Old Crow, a fly-in First Nation community of 400 north of the Arctic Circle, and culminates in Whitehorse on July 1st in conjunction with Canada Day festivities. In each community, One Change will be hosting interactive public events, providing Yukon residents with free energy efficient products and educating everyone that simple actions matter. “During this campaign, our simple action will be listening,” said Stuart Hickox, founder and president of One Change. “We want to hear from Yukon residents about what will work in their communities and let them know that conservation is an important part of the energy solution. We are also very excited to hear what people have to say in northern communities because they are already seeing the effects of climate change. ” “We heard very clearly from participants at our recent energy charrette that energy conservation must be an integral part of any resource planning that we do,” said Yukon Energy president David Morrison. “This community tour will give us an opportunity to hear more from Yukoners about what they’d like to see in a territory-wide energy conservation plan.” “Yukon Electrical always welcomes an opportunity to listen to our customers,” said Dwight Redden, General Manager of Yukon Electrical Company Limited. “We need input to develop a plan that will work for our communities and give Yukoners a real stake in how we move forward on electrical conservation.” After the campaign concludes, a summary report will be compiled and released. For a list of Yukon communities being visited, go to www.onechange.org/yukon2011/. About One Change One Change is an award-winning not-for-profit, non-partisan organization based in Ottawa, Ontario with project offices throughout Canada and the United States. One Change empowers people to believe that simple actions matter and to make smart choices that protect the environment. One Change delivers innovative community-based social marketing campaigns aimed at encouraging people to adopt environmentally-friendly behaviours, including its flagship energy efficiency campaign, Project Porchlight. To date, One Change has engaged and trained more than 12,000 volunteers in over 900 communities across North America. One Change programs convert environmental awareness into action by mobilizing volunteers and existing community groups to be spokespeople for environmental messages in their own neighbourhoods. About Yukon Electrical Company Limited The Yukon Electrical Company Limited has been providing electrical service to Yukoners for over a century. Chartered in 1901, the pioneer company began generating electricity for the residents of Whitehorse using a wood-fired, horizontal piston steam engine. Since then, Yukon Electrical has grown to serve over 16,400 customers in 19 communities from south of the Yukon border to north of the Arctic Circle. A private, investor-owned utility, Yukon Electrical is a member of the ATCO Group of Companies. Its head office and service centre is in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. About Yukon Energy Established in 1987, Yukon Energy is a publicly owned electrical utility that operates as a business, at arms length from the Yukon government. We are the main generator and transmitter of electrical energy in Yukon. We work with our parent company Yukon Development Corporation to provide Yukoners with a secure supply of clean, electrical energy by focusing on renewable sources of power and energy solutions that complement our legacy hydro assets. For more information: Sara Haskill Marketing Manager - One Change (Ottawa) Phone: 613-232-5892 x 208 sara.haskill@onechange.org Janet Patterson Supervisor, Communications Yukon Energy Corporation Phone: 867- 393-5333 Cell: 867- 335-1519 janet.patterson@yec.yk.ca Laura Carlson Corporate Communications Advisor The Yukon Electrical Company Limited Phone: 867-633-7010 Cell: 867-334-5534 laura.carlson@atco.com
Media Releases
Jul 11, 2011  Comment

Yukon Conservation Society and Yukon Energy Partner on Children’s Programming

Is there a child in your family who wants to be an Energy Conservation Kid? If so, the Yukon Conservation Society wants to hear from you. YCS has teamed up with Yukon Energy to deliver an energy conservation pilot project for young children. “The goals of YCS and Yukon Energy are aligned with this project,” said YCS Energy Coordinator Anne Middler. “We want to help build a conservation culture starting with our littlest energy consumers.” The Energy Conservation Kids Ed-Venture program is designed for youngsters between the ages of three and five along with a parent or guardian. The pre-schoolers will learn about energy conservation and electrical safety through an afternoon of stories, songs, and other activities. They’ll also receive a bag of energy conservation products and information to take home and share with their families. “One of the consistent comments we heard during our recent energy charrette is that there’s a need for more public education about energy conservation,” Yukon Energy spokesperson Janet Patterson said. “We think programs such as this for pre-schoolers will help them establish life-long patterns of using electricity wisely. Children also tend to be great ‘energy ambassadors’ within their circle of family and friends.” The pilot project is being launched on Tuesday, July 12 in Whitehorse at the Yukon Conservation Society. If it is successful, Yukon Energy and the Yukon Conservation Society will consider expanding it to other dates and locations. To register a child, contact the Yukon Conservation Society at 668-5678 or ycsenergy@gmail.com. Contact: Anne Middler Energy Coordinator Yukon Conservation Society (867) 668-5678 ycsenergycoordinator@gmail.com Janet Patterson Communications Supervisor Yukon Energy Corporation (867) 393-5333 janet.patterson@yec.yk.ca

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