With many communities experiencing “higher than usual” power outages, especially over the last week, N.W.T.’s Power Corp. says that they are working to address what they say are mainly mechanical issues at Talston and Snare Falls stations. The company said that they hope to prevent future outages by addressing another major cause, which they said is due to “vegetation” such as fallen trees during storms.
Doug Prendergast, who is the communications manager at NWT’s Power Corp. said the company is taking actions in response to the outages which have impacted communities in the N.W.T. Prendergast explained that recent outages have included one hour long outages in both Fort Resolution on July 30 and Hay River in Hay River on July 30 (where he said the majority of customers lost power for up to 3.5 hours) followed by one on Aug. 1 (where he said the majority of customers lost power for 1 hour). He said while the majority of outages lasted “shorter periods of time” some lasted up to 9 hours for customers in Hay River, Enterprise and K’atl’odeeche First Nation.
Prendergast admitted that the outages have increased in frequency, but said the company is taking actions to help address these power disruptions.
“NTPC acknowledges that the frequency of outages over the past several months has been higher than usual.”
In response, the company is in the process of taking actions to address the outages, two of which are currently underway. One is aimed at addressing causes based on the natural forces in the environment and the other response is aimed at addressing mechanical problems, Prendergast told True North FM.
“(NTPC is) addressing mechanical issues at Taltson and Snare Falls generating stations to improve reliability,” he said.
“The Taltson Zone has experienced a number of outages that can be tied to a mechanical issue at the Taltson hydro unit that is being addressed during the current summer shutdown. With Taltson offline, we have experienced issues with the backup diesel plants in both Hay River and Fort Resolution,” said Prendergast.
Mechanical issues were at the root of the outages last week that lasted up to 9 hours for some customers.
“Hay River, Enterprise and K’atl’odeeche First Nation experienced community-wide outages on July 30 and August 1 that lasted up to 9 hours and 8.5 hours respectively for some customers. The majority of customers lost power for shorter periods of time. The cause of both these outages was mechanical issues at the local plant that reduced the available generation capacity,” said Prendergast.
Other outages had shorter durations including some in Hay River and Fort Resolution. These were also due to mechanical issues.
“There was also a one-hour outage in Fort Resolution on July 30 that was caused by an overheated engine at the local plant,” he added.
“A one-hour partial outage in Hay River occurred on Monday, August 4 when a fuse failed and needed to be replaced,” said Prendergast.
Disruptions can happen for different reasons or combinations of reasons, including natural phenomena, which alone have the power take systems off the grid at least temporarily.
“(NTPC is) committing additional resources to our vegetation management program to address contacts with trees,” said Prendergast
Natural forces in the environment can be difficult to control. The summer months tend to see increased outages due to factors such as lightning strikes and wildlife and vegetation contact, said Prendergast.
The nature of the electric energy involved is also a factor, as malfunctions can be rooted in power generation or transmission or both.
“There are a number of reasons why outages occur – some originate due to issues with generation while others originate on our transmission and distribution lines,” said Prendergast.
A spokesperson from Naka Power Utilities in N.W.T. said the causes behind recent power outages in the Hay River area between July 30 to Aug 4 were not related to their distribution system.
Determining the root causes, along with the frequency and impact of the outages is something NWT Power Corp is tracking to help unpack the power disruptions.
“All outages are reviewed to identify the root causes and determine what can be done to reduce both the frequency and impact going forward,” said Prendergast.
Mechanical issues include work being done to complete the Talston Overhaul. On July 30, the Talston hydro facility went temporarily offline for a planned outage to address identified mechanical issues including the completion of an overhaul project that began in 2023. Fort Smith, Fort Resolution, Hay River, Enterprise and K’atl’odeeche First Nation are among communities with customers that were reverted back to diesel fuel for a three week period.
Earlier this year, Prendergast spoke about the installation of a permanent solution to the technical issues at Talston.
“When Taltson returned to service in March 2025 following an almost two-year shutdown to overhaul the hydro unit, NTPC announced that an interim solution to technical issues that were identified earlier this year had been put in place, allowing the unit to return to commercial operation,” said NTPC also indicated that installation of a permanent solution would be installed this summer – the work will be completed during this shutdown,” said Prendergast.
The company arranged to have back up power is set up to support the generator on site. While the work is being done, Prendergast said that there will be increased risks of electrical outages.
Currently, the generation capacity of Taltson is 22 megawatts, the plant saw an increase of 4 megawatts when the facility was re-opened in April following the overhaul work that took place beginning in 2023 to the spring of 2025.
In their application to the public utilities board, the Power Corp said the total cost for the overhaul was expected to total approximately $97.8 million. This included $70 million in project costs and about $45 million in fuel and other operational costs.
Back in April, Cory Strang, president and CEO of NWT’s Power Corp 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.
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 hydro power to other communities in the South Slave Lake region.
