Did you know that March is National Engineering Month? Throughout our province, NB Power employs more than 350 engineers. These hardworking employees work in our generating facilities and offices, on our distribution and transmission infrastructure and in the field around your communities.

From analyzing the core of a nuclear reactor to helping to develop a new transmission line, engineering at NB Power provides a diverse and exciting career path.

René Paulin is one of two Mechanical Engineers at the Belledune Generating Station, a coal plant in the northern part of the province.

After growing up in Petit-Rocher, René completed a Mechanical Engineering degree at Université de Moncton. During his studies, he worked at Belledune as a summer student and got a taste of what it’s like working in a power plant. After gaining some hands-on job experience after graduation, René accepted an engineering position at NB Power in 2008.

A key member of the operating team for the past decade, René’s days are filled with inspections, problem solving and developing recommendations for the maintenance team to keep the station operating safely and reliably.

The engineering team at Belledune also takes care of work in other locations, such as our Millbank and Ste. Rose combustion units, Nepisiguit Falls hydro station and the Eel River High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) converter station. This means their knowledge covers multiple facilities and types of generation– each presenting its own challenges.

“Each day is an adventure, and I am fortunate to be able to learn more with every job,” said René. “I really enjoy finding solutions to complex problems – that’s why I became an engineer. My role allows me to work on many different types of equipment and systems, which means lots of variety and interesting work.”

Bernard Roy, Station Manager for Belledune (and fellow engineer!), says that engineers like René have the unique opportunity to learn about different parts of the provincial power grid.

“In French, we would say staff like René are “polyvalent” – which basically means he’s well rounded, and nimble to respond to anything that comes up,” said Bernard. “Our engineers work closely with maintenance teams, work planners and management to help keep all of our assets operating safely and reliably.”

René and his wife live in Bathurst with their two sons. When he’s not working, his family spends a lot of time at local rinks for hockey, and René coaches his sons’ teams. Some of his engineering skills like troubleshooting, time management and collaboration are as handy on the ice as they are at work.

So what’s the best part about being an engineer at NB Power according to René?

“I am fortunate to work alongside some wonderful New Brunswickers,” he said. “The knowledge and talent of my co-workers is second to none. We’re all working together to make sure New Brunswick communities can count on reliable energy to power their homes and businesses.”

Have you ever wondered what happens after you call NB Power to report an outage? If it happens during a storm, rest assured that lots of work has already taken place to ensure the duration of the outage is as short as possible for our customers. In this post, and through a series of articles to be featured throughout this month, we will take you behind the scenes of our power restoration efforts.

Before the storm

With 20,815 km of line – which is enough to stretch across Canada four times - getting the power back on after a major storm is a big job. That’s why we are constantly monitoring the weather to anticipate storms and we take action before outages happen.

You may be asking yourself; how can you prepare without knowing what will happen? Our team works year-round to minimize the impacts of outages – from equipment maintenance, vegetation management, weather monitoring and software improvements - a whole lot of effort goes into maintaining and restoring power.

We also leverage new technologies to better prepare for storms. Our Transmission and Distribution Field Operations Emergency Planning team constantly monitors the weather, and with the use of various tools, they can assess the estimated number of outages and determine where they will most likely hit.

As soon as we see the potential for outages, we determine if we need to pre-emptively dispatch crews. This is called “staging”. When crews are staged, they are placed in specific areas, and are ready to get to work as soon as it is required.  If we know a big weather event is coming our way, on top of staging our NB Power crews, we secure additional contractor crews in areas throughout the province predicted to experience the worst effects of a storm.

During the restoration effort

The safety of our customers and employees is our top priority. That’s why, when a storm is still raging and visibility and road conditions are bad, our crews are sometimes not able to get to access the damage immediately. But as soon as it is determined safe, we activate our power restoration plans.

Our goal is always to restore power as quickly and safely as possible. To achieve this, we need to set priorities. During an outage, you may notice that some areas have their power restored before others. This can happen because many different faults can cause an outage. Whenever this happens, NB Power must prioritize which faults will be addressed first.

We direct our resources to address the following issues in order of importance: first, we check the system and repair damage to power plants, transmission lines and substations. Then, we restore power to critical services such as hospitals, police, fire, water and communication systems. At the same time, we determine where we can make repairs that will return service to the largest number of customers in the least amount of time, such as high-density housing and large neighbourhoods. Finally, we restore power to smaller neighbourhoods and individual customers.

During storms, you may be concerned if you don’t see NB Power crews close to your home. That doesn’t mean we are not working on restoring your power. The damage to our distribution system can be far from your neighbourhood, but still impacts it.

Sometimes the cause of an outage may be difficult to locate or access, which can impact the time it takes our teams to restore your power. As soon as our team assesses the cause of an outage and initiates the plan to fix it, our website displays an estimated time when power will be restored. We update those pages with information from the field as soon as it becomes available. In some cases, this means these estimates can change. But our team will continue to work as safely and efficiently as possible until everyone is restored.

With a need for blood donations here in New Brunswick and across the country, we wanted to shine a light on employees giving the gift of life through Canadian Blood Services.

The top obstacle for most new blood donors is getting over their fear of needles. When longtime NB Power employee Erik Matchett started giving blood in 2014, he was admittedly a little nervous, too.

“My wife couldn’t believe that I was going to give blood,” Erik says, thinking back to his first donation. “My family thinks of me as kind of a wuss when it comes to pain and gore. But giving blood was no big deal!”

The first donation went well and Erik never looked back. He schedules regular donations and aims to bring a friend or co-worker to each appointment.

 “I feel it’s really important to give back,” says Erik. “Giving blood definitely isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it works for me. It is really meaningful to know that my blood could help save the life of a fellow New Brunswicker. The average donation can save three lives.”

As a Manager in our Learning and Change Team, Erik supports his colleagues with updates impacting people, processes and equipment. As NB Power works to modernize the electrical grid, Erik’s team is busier than ever, helping employees get used to new technologies and ways of doing business.

Similarly, Erik says that Canadian Blood Services is modernizing to keep with the times.

“They’ve developed this great mobile app that allows you to keep track of appointments and urgent needs for donation,” Erik says. “Even cooler is that the app tracks your bleed time – how long it takes to get your donation – so you see friendly little competitions between regular donors.”

Feeling inspired after chatting with Erik about his experience, Marketing and Communications employee Jackie Leger visited blood.ca to check eligibility and register for an upcoming clinic. But when she heard a radio ad over the holidays asking for donors, she moved up her appointment to December 23.

“I was pretty worried about fainting,” said Jackie. “But from the moment I arrived, the staff put me at ease and walked me through the steps. Even with uncooperative veins in my right arm, a talented nurse was able to get the full 450 ml donation from my left arm. It was pretty amazing to watch that bag fill up.”

From start to finish, Jackie’s first donation took about one hour including assessments, the donation itself and monitoring before heading home. She says she was surprised by how little the donation process hurt.

“The little prick test for hemoglobin hurt way more than the big needle,” she says. “I felt a little less energetic than normal in the hours after my donation, but more than anything I felt proud and happy to know my blood will help those in need. It is such a quick and easy way to help others – I’m not sure why I waited so long to do it!”

Erik and Jackie have already scheduled their next donations and are challenging other colleagues to join them. While COVID-19 has impacted donation levels, they both felt very safe with the screening measures and enhanced safety protocols to keep donors, staff and volunteers safe.

If you’re interested in giving blood, visit blood.ca today to find a location near you!

NB Power’s hydro facilities are located along the Saint John River system. They are “run of river” facilities with very little storage capability. Storage is measured in hours, unlike larger facilities like Churchill Falls in Labrador which can store water for months. Water coming from upstream into the headponds must be used for generation at that moment, or must be allowed to bypass the dam. Put simply, the water that flows in must flow out.

The Mactaquac Generating Station at full load passes water through at 80,000 cubic feet per second. Any flow greater than that must pass through the spill gates. In 2018, the Saint John River flows at Mactaquac were more than 300,000 cubic feet per second. As a result, water at Mactaquac was passing through the spillways. At high flows, above plant generating capacity, the water coming in must be released immediately to maintain the proper slope on the headpond to allow the river to flow downstream.

Essentially the river returns to its natural state during high flow events. In order to maintain the natural flow of the river and allow the water to pass the facilities safely, NB Power has very specific operating guidelines.

Water naturally runs downhill. Increased water flow requires there is adequate slope on the river or headpond to continue the natural flow of the river. In order to accomplish this, NB Power lowers the Mactaquac headpond level at the dam to maintain this slope, thus allowing the passage of natural river flow. When the river flow decreases, the headpond level will return to normal levels.

In the lower Saint John River Basin the Reversing Falls in Saint John creates a natural barrier in the river system that is essentially the narrow end of the funnel. With the current river flows being greater than 300,000 cubic feet per second, approximately only half of that water can pass through the falls at low tide. As a result, a bathtub effect is created in the lower basin whereby the water that is not able to pass through the falls backs up and cause flooding. This is compounded during sustained high flows like New Brunswick is currently experiencing.

Higher than average snow fall in North Western New Brunswick and Northern Maine coupled with rain events has resulted in these sustained high flows.

NB Power’s highly trained staff works closely with Riverwatch, the province’s Emergency Measures Organization and communities all along the river during these events.

NB Power is constantly observing and communicating river and station conditions with the goal of operating facilities with the least possible impact on the natural flow of the river while doing everything possible to keep its infrastructure and people safe.

After the winter that just kept on giving, the signs of spring are welcome as we put away our snow shovels for another season. With temperatures starting to warm up across the province, this is also the time when many New Brunswickers are closely watching rising water levels in the rivers and in some cases, already dealing with flooding

Now that the spring freshet is upon us, NB Power has been hard at work with the New Brunswick Emergency Measures Organization and other local partners monitoring ice conditions, snow pack, precipitation accumulation and weather patterns.

How it works

NB Power operates six run-of-river hydroelectric generating stations across New Brunswick- the largest being Mactaquac. Run of river facilities depend on the constant flow of the river. To generate electricity, the water flowing into the station is directed down and through turbines, providing the energy to spin the generators. Run-of-river stations have no ability to hold back water. All water that comes into the station must go out - especially during the spring freshet when water flows are higher than normal.

Hydro generating stations like Mactaquac contribute energy to our grid year-round, but sometimes during the spring thaw we have more water flowing into our stations than we’re able to generate. When all of the turbines are operating at full capacity in the station, operators open the spill gates to let out this excess water.

Ice Jams

Ice jams on the other hand do hold back water and ice from moving freely downstream. Ice jams have been the cause of major flood events in the past here in New Brunswick, like those in Perth-Andover, Fredericton and St. George.

These jams happen when the ice in the river breaks up, sticks together and hits the bottom of the river. Like an iceberg in the ocean, what we see from land is only the tip of the ice jam in the river. Once the ice jams, it interrupts the natural flow of the river and the water behind it backs up, causing water levels to rise. Some areas of the river are more likely to experience ice jams than others.

Here are a few other factors that can contribute to ice jams:

• Two rivers joining, like the Tobique and Saint John rivers
• Elements like islands, low bridges and sharp bends can narrow or block the path for ice movement
• Thicker ice in the river
• Shallow areas of river

Severe flooding happens when those factors combine with the following:

• Speed and volume of river flow
• Strength of ice cover
• Snow depth
• Precipitation
• How quickly the temperatures rise

Be safe

It is so important for people to stay away from the water and ice near these hydro stations in the spring. Ice may appear to be solid, but is inconsistent due to changing water flows below. Calm water on the river below a hydro station can quickly turn into rapids with a strong undertow.

Watch for warning signs, boom, buoys and barriers around NB Power hydro stations.

Have an idea for a future blog post? Let us know in the comments section below or email us.