Tabletop exercises helping OPG’s hydro operations prepare for spring freshet
At a glance
- OPG’s internal freshet procedures being put to the test with annual tabletop exercises.
- Simulated scenarios ensure OPG’s people, equipment, facilities are ready to handle freshet.
- Intensity, timing, and duration of freshet is different every year.
Across OPG’s hydroelectric operations, tabletop exercises are now underway to help prepare staff and facilities for the coming spring freshet, the annual influx of water from spring rains and melting snow.
Involving a wide range of employees, from operations staff who operate and maintain OPG’s dams and hydro stations, to employees in water management, engineering, and dam safety, these annual facilitated discussions put internal procedures to the test. Running through a simulated escalating scenario, the exercises help ensure staff are ready to respond to every potential outcome of freshet.
“The intensity, timing, and duration of freshet is different every year, and the impacts on our dams and generating stations can be hard to predict in any given year,” said Justin Fung, a Coordinator of Dam and Public Safety with OPG. “These annual exercises ensure our people, equipment, and facilities are ready to handle freshet, whatever it looks like this year.”
It’s just one of the early efforts helping OPG prepare for the increase of water expected to enter the province’s river systems every year at this time.
And OPG is not acting alone.
“The intensity, timing, and duration of freshet is different every year, and the impacts on our dams and generating stations can be hard to predict in any given year. These annual exercises ensure our people, equipment, and facilities are ready to handle freshet, whatever it looks like this year.”Justin Fung, a Coordinator of Dam and Public Safety with OPG.
The company works with conservation authorities, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF), and other agencies to manage the province’s waterbodies and mitigate the impacts of freshet. A coordinated effort to managing the inflows makes the best use of storage capacity and spill capability at OPG and facilities owned by others.
Other efforts underway at OPG include snow surveys to measure snow water content at locations across the province where OPG operates. This data is shared across the province via the MNRF web portal.
Data collected from these surveys, along with data from similar surveys conducted by the MNRF, weather forecasts, hydrological models and satellite-derived snow cover maps, help OPG’s water managers estimate the spring runoff potential and assist with freshet planning at OPG’s hydro stations and water control structures.
OPG’s water management staff take into consideration all of these factors to forecast the coming freshet and determine appropriate strategies, including how much water to draw down from key reservoirs, and how quickly to refill them to accommodate the expected higher inflows.
While freshet can vary significantly in timing and degree depending on geography, OPG’s annual pre-freshet exercises are helping ready staff for everything and anything.
“It is drawing everyone in across the board into a state of readiness,” said Fung. “Our people, our equipment, and our internal procedures are prepared.”
To learn more about how OPG prepares for freshet, visit opg.com/water/.
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