Nicolle Butcher of Ontario Power Generation: Innovating for Hydro on Both Sides of the Border

Nicolle Butcher of Ontario Power Generation: Innovating for Hydro on Both Sides of the Border

Nicolle Butcher visits OPG’s Sir Adam Beck Generating Station in August 2020.

Hydropower has and will continue to play in important role in the United States and Canada as renewable energy is increasingly prioritized in both countries. To meet self-imposed or government-mandated renewable energy goals while satisfying increasing demands for energy, hydro providers will need to innovate to maximize every megawatt (MW) of power and minimize harmful environmental effects. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is a Canadian electricity producer that is striving to do exactly that by expanding its portfolio to more forms of energy, with assets in both Canada and the United States. In this article, Nicolle Butcher, OPG’s senior vice president for renewable generation and power marketing, tells Hydro Leader how the company’s portfolio and strategies have evolved, how OPG is working with stakeholders to meet current and future challenges, and about the importance of inspiring and providing opportunity for the next generation of hydro leaders.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Nicolle Butcher: My background is actually in finance, and I have an MBA, but I have been with OPG for a little over 20 years. I have moved throughout a number of different areas in the company, including corporate, thermal, and nuclear. My most recent position before my current one was as the corporate business development and strategy lead. During my time in that position, we pursued a growth strategy that led to a number of acquisitions in the United States related to hydro. After we completed those over the last 3–4 years, it was something of a natural transition for me to go into our hydro operations and learn more about our operations in Ontario, while still retaining accountability for our acquisitions in the United States.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about OPG.

Nicolle Butcher: OPG has about 20,000 MW of capacity, primarily nuclear and hydro. We also have some thermal generation, since as a part of the acquisition process I mentioned, we bought a number of gas plants in Ontario and now have about 3,000 MW of gas. We have a 2,000 MW oil-gas dual fuel station, some biomass, and solar. Everything outside nuclear falls under my organization and my team.

A bird’s-eye view of OPG’s Sir Adam Beck Generating Station.

Hydro Leader: What can you tell us about the differences between working in the various fields you have been a part of, and how have you benefited from that breadth of experience?

Nicolle Butcher: I was in different roles in those different organizations. When I was in thermal, we were focused on building new gas plants. It was very much a project- and construction-focused job. When I went into nuclear, the job focused on preparing for a major refurbishment of our nuclear plants. It also gave me insight into the distinctive elements of the nuclear culture. Coming into hydro, both through the process of acquiring Eagle Creek Renewable Energy and in my new position, I see the cultural differences. For example, hydro is spread throughout the province, which is immense, and this drives a distinctive culture in different areas of the province.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about the long-term growth strategy you mentioned, and how it led OPG to acquire Eagle Creek and other entities?

Nicolle Butcher: In 2016, we stepped back to assess the effect that the closure of one of our nuclear plants would have. At the time, we planned to close it in 2020, but now it’s scheduled to close in 2024. The effect that losing that many MW would have on the company drove us to figure out how we want to grow. We went through a process of assessing the industry and our opportunities for growth. We couldn’t grow through our traditional process of building a new plant in Ontario, so we had to look at other alternatives. That drove us to look at a number of new things. For instance, we had never operated outside Ontario before we made the Eagle Creek acquisition. Expanding into the United States, expanding technology, and moving into combined-cycle gas turbine technology were all big steps for us. We also had a major innovation focus, including disruptive innovation, which drove us to look at storage technologies, such as batteries and pump storage, and at electrification, which drove us to consider how we may want to influence the broader adoption of electrification for personal vehicles and mass transit. The growth strategy led us into the United States. Eagle Creek was a good fit for us because it dealt with small hydro, which is a technology we understand well, and it operated in markets that we had traded in for years. We felt like we understood the market and the technology. The regulatory piece is a bit different in the United States, and that was something we had to learn about, but we felt like we had a real base understanding of those operations. We followed up quickly on the heels of the Eagle Creek acquisition with the purchase of Cube Hydro. We’ve spent the last year or so working to integrate those two acquisitions and to establish a strong operating organization in the United States.

Hydro Leader: Does OPG’s desire to drive electrification affect the way you operate your hydro infrastructure?

Nicolle Butcher: Going down the path toward electrification freed us up to be able to come up with our climate change strategy. Our climate change strategy is to be net zero by 2040, which is a real challenge. We’re looking at creative ways to reduce the carbon produced in the gas plants, but also how to build around that, including electrification. Even if we have to use the gas plants to peak, it still makes more sense to use that energy to power mass transit or electric vehicles. There’s a really good fit there.

Hydrogen also falls under our electrification umbrella. That’s one of the areas we just announced. We’re looking at pilot projects at one of our hydro plants to use hydrogen production in conjunction with providing automatic generation control services to the grid. That will help us advance toward our 2040 goals from a climate change perspective.

Hydro Leader: How many pumped hydro plants do you currently have, and are you planning to build more in the future?

Nicolle Butcher: We have one in Niagara Falls with a capacity of about 175 MW. It has been there for many years, tied to our Niagara facilities. We are also in the process of developing a 400 MW pumped storage plant in an old mine. We’re remediating some of the environmental effects of the mine through the pumped storage facility.

Hydro Leader: How does hydropower fit into OPG’s climate change plan?

Nicolle Butcher: Refurbishing and redeveloping our existing hydro assets is a fundamental basis for the plan. We’ve been operating hydro for 100 years; our challenge from a climate change perspective is to make sure we’re operating it for another 100. We are looking at our existing hydro and making sure we’re overhauling it. Our fleet’s average age is 80 years. We are primed for overhauls right now and are actually starting a $2.5 billion overhaul program that will make sure that we extend the life of those plants and don’t lose any of our clean megawatthours (MWh). We have a program to look at how to redevelop those plants as they come to the end of their lives in a way that allows us to make better use of the capacity and energy. We’re also looking at some greenfield development, which are long-term projects. We have had greenfield development over the last 10–15 years: We built the Peter Sutherland Sr. facility, which is a facility of about 28 MW north of Timmins, Ontario. It came into service in 2017, so it’s fairly recent. From a climate change perspective, we also look at both adaptation and mitigation. Our rivers are changing; how do we prepare for that from a dam safety perspective? We need to ensure that the facilities we have can withstand potential new flood levels as well as other changes. What happens from a water management perspective if you have more water or less water? All those adaptation and mitigation concerns fall under our climate change plan.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about OPG’s efforts to get more MW out of existing infrastructure through upgrades?

Nicolle Butcher: As part of our hydro overhaul program, we look at how to upgrade the runners to make our plants more efficient. Our aim is not to replace like for like, but instead to do an analysis to ensure that we’re getting the best out of the next 30–50 years of a given plant, recognizing that we need every MWh we can get out of hydro to meet our climate change goals.

Hydro Leader: What else is distinctive about OPG’s hydro operations?

Nicolle Butcher: One unique aspect of OPG in Canada is our relationship with indigenous communities. We have four stations that are equity partnerships with First Nation partners—they helped us determine how to construct and operate the facilities and actually own equity in them. These relationships help us throughout operations. They allow us to build capacity within the First Nations and to make sure we have the services and skills we need. Often, the communities around the First Nations are small, and these partnerships help build our capacity to operate those facilities efficiently, including through education or apprenticeship programs.

Turbines at OPG’s Ranney Falls Generating Station, located in Campbellford, Ontario, which is being upgraded from 10 to 20 MW.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about your experience as a woman leader in the hydro industry?

Nicolle Butcher: It’s been interesting. I would say it’s harder when you’re at lower levels in the organization. There’s a glass ceiling that you need to break through, and it takes a lot of energy to get there. Now that I am where I am, there’s less of that. I’m considered an equal player on our executive team and externally. While I think hydro is not as diverse as we’d like it to be, I don’t feel like there’s anything holding us back. What I spend my time on is making sure that the women who are at the first-linemanager level have the support and guidance they need to break through and advance so that we have enough women coming up in the ranks to help us with the diversity issue as we go forward.

OPG's 14 MW Lower Sturgeon Generating Station, located north of Timmins, Ontario.

Hydro Leader: How should the hydro industry be recruiting young people or encouraging them to get into the hydro business?

Jessica Polak and Nicolle Butcher at OPG’s Sir Adam Beck Generating Station.

Nicolle Butcher: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs and women in trades programs are helpful. How do we encourage students at the high school and college levels in Canada to take an interest in hydro and make sure that we have an inclusive environment when we do hire women in trades? I think that’s an area that, as an industry, we need to work to get better at.

Hydro Leader: What is your vision for the future?

Nicolle Butcher: Hydro is our underpinning to get us where we need to be on our climate change goals for 2040. The vision is to be an excellent operator and to look for every opportunity to get an additional MWh out through our overall programs, to maximize the capacity and energy efficiencies that we can drive through innovation, and to find areas in which can we continue to expand our hydro resources. H

Nicolle Butcher is the senior vice president for renewable generation and power marketing at Ontario Power Generation. For more about OPG, visit opg.com.