A huge tunnel construction project which used the largest tunnel boring machine in the world will revolutionise the Ontario electricity system and provide Ontarians with clean energy for more than a century, the provincial government of Ontario says.
Last week, Ontario Minister of Energy Chris Bentley announced that the Niagara Tunnel project has achieved a significant milestone with the completion of the concrete lining for the 10.2 kilometer tunnel.
Once complete, the tunnel will divert water away from the Niagara River and carry it to the Niagara Falls generating stations (see map), allowing Ontario Power Generation to increase output at the Sir Adam Beck generating stations by around 1.6 billion kilowatt-hours – enough to generate power for up to 160,000 homes.
Claiming that the project is the largest renewable energy development of its type under construction anywhere in the world and will generate $1 billion worth of economic benefits to the region, Bentley says hydroelectricity is crucial to the province’s future regarding clean, reliable energy.
“Ontario has harnessed Niagara Falls as a source of clean energy for more than 100 years and will continue to do so for 100 more when the tunnel is completed next year”, Bentley says.
The project represents part of Ontario’s broader efforts to switch to cleaner sources of energy. The province has gone from having no commercial solar projects and only a handful of wind turbines around a decade ago to being home to 14,000 micro-scale solar projects as well as more than 400 small and large scale photovoltaic projects and being home to the country’s five largest wind farms.
Key project facts:
- The largest tunnel boring machine in the world (see picture below), nicknamed “Big Becky”, was used to drill the Niagara Tunnel. It measured 150 metres long and weighed about 4,000 tonnes.
- Tunnel boring was completed in May 2011. The finished tunnel is 10.2 kilometres long and the diameter is 12.7 metres or as high as a four-storey building.
- At its deepest, the tunnel is 140 metres below the City of Niagara Falls. Water will propel through the tunnel at a rate of 500 cubic metres per second, fast enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool in a matter of seconds.
- 1.7 million cubic metres of rock has been excavated from the tunnel.
- About 500,000 cubic metres of concrete will be used to line the tunnel – more than enough to build a sidewalk from Windsor to Quebec City.
