The town of St. Catharines in southern Ontario announced March 12 that its Twelve Mile Creek will soon be a revenue stream, with its proposed 4.2 MW Shickluna Hydro Generating Station having been approved for construction.
The facility will be built alongside Twelve Mile Creek, just south of the Fourth Avenue Bridge.
“I am pleased to announce that the government has awarded St. Catharines Hydro a contract to generate up to 4.2MW of hydroelectricity,” announced MPP Jim Bradley at Wednesday’s event. “The Shickluna Hydro Generating Station, to be operated on the Twelve Mile Creek, is an exciting project that St. Catharines Hydro has designed to renew and enhance hydroelectricity production in Niagara.”
The projected cost of construction is $38 – $42 million. With this new project St. Catharines Hydro’s income is projected at $800,000 – $1 million annually.
Shickluna was approved for construction under the provincial government’s new Hydroelectric Standard Offer Program, which assists municipalities with building new waterpower projects that produce greater than 500KW and less than 5MW of electricity. The facility was given the green light for construction by the Ontario Power Authority on Feb. 7.
Shickluna will operate as a run-of-river facility, meaning it will have little or no water storage. Water flows in Twelve Mile Creek will be directed into a powerhouse containing the turbine generating equipment, while a nearby distribution line will deliver electricity to Horizon Utilities. A land and water agreement has already been signed with Ontario Power Generation for access to Twelve Mile Creek.
The station is named after Louis Shickluna, who founded the Shickluna Shipyard in 1838 approximately 1 km upstream from where the new Shickluna Hydro Generating Station will be built. Shickluna also served as a councillor for the City of St. Catharines.
St. Catharines Hydro Inc., wholly owned by the City of St. Catharines, is the Holding Company for subsidiary St. Catharines Hydro Generation Inc. and a shareholder in Horizon Utilities Corporation.