Bow Lake Wind Farm Temporarily Offline Due to Regional Transmission Constraints

Press Release

Batchewana First Nation – September 24, 2025 – Batchewana First Nation is advising members and partners that the Bow Lake Wind Farm has been offline since September 3, 2025, as a result of a Hydro One transmission outage. This issue is not related to any site-specific problems at the Bow Lake facility but rather stems from constraints on the regional transmission system. As a result, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) reduced the facility’s power output to zero.

The IESO, in collaboration with Hydro One, is currently conducting engineering studies to support updated operating limits on the regional transmission system. This includes work to safely adjust the thermal limits on the connected 115 kV line. The process is expected to take a couple of weeks, after which the transmission restrictions may be lifted, allowing Bow Lake to resume generation.

Batchewana First Nation’s Senior Director of Energy, Jim Tait, together with Blue Earth Renewables (the facility operator), are actively working with the IESO to assess the impact of this outage on revenues and to determine the level of compensation that may be forthcoming.

“In the meantime, our Operations and Maintenance team is taking advantage of this downtime to perform proactive servicing to ensure Bow Lake is fully optimized and ready to resume production once transmission restrictions are lifted,” said Chief Mark McCoy.

Batchewana First Nation will provide further updates to members and stakeholders as more information becomes available in the coming days.

The Goulais Wind Site remains fully operational and is not impacted by the transmission outage.

Media Contact:
Alexandra Syrette
Communications Manager, Batchewana First Nation
alex@batchewana.ca
www.batchewana.ca

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