Visitors to this blog last weekend may have been puzzled to notice a new fuel category called “control actions” in Tables 1 and 2 in the left sidebar. This strange new category was introduced for the first time beginning on Saturday at six a.m., and disappeared around mid afternoon yesterday. I noticed it Saturday afternoon, and after looking at the underlying data which generates the tables, the power generation output component of which comes from the Independent Electricity System Operator, realized that the IESO had placed two generators, Thunder Bay unit 1 and Thunder Bay unit 2, into the new classification. TBay 1 and 2 had been, until very recently, coal-fired.
I inquired, and the IESO told me yesterday that that had been an error, and that the two units have been reclassified, from Coal to the Other category. Other includes a number of generators, most in northern Ontario, and mostly fired with biomass.
In number terms, this is moot: neither of the units produced any electricity during the time they were in the “control actions” category.