By Staff Reporter
TORONTO — Two months after Premier Doug Ford said cutting off Ontario’s electricity exports to the United States was “on the table,” Ontario’s grid operator has signed up to import 600 megawatts of power from New York this winter.
The Independent Electricity System Operator said in an Oct. 1 notice that it had secured “a 6-month commitment for an additional 600 MW of capacity for this upcoming winter period beginning November 1, 2026,” acquired as a “firm import from Alpha Generation, a past Capacity Auction participant.” The operator said the move was a response to “facility maintenance recently requested to start this upcoming winter period through 2027 and 2028.”
The deal drew little attention until CBC News reported it Friday, noting that the power is coming from New York State. The IESO did not say which plant would supply it, or what it costs.
Who is selling
Alpha Generation is the power company backed by the private equity firm ArcLight Capital Partners. In a 2024 filing with the New York Independent System Operator, it described itself as owner and operator of more than 5,000 megawatts in New York, including the Astoria, Gowanus, Narrows, Arthur Kill and Bethlehem plants and the Oswego Harbor Power Station on Lake Ontario. The company’s website lists the Oswego plant at 1,641 megawatts, fueled by oil.
Ontario’s grid connects to New York’s across the Niagara and St. Lawrence rivers. New York relies on Ontario and Quebec for about 6 percent of its power, iPolitics reported, citing RBC.
‘Everything’s on the table’
The contract lands awkwardly against the premier’s rhetoric. On Aug. 24, days after Prime Minister Mark Carney walked away from trade talks and the United States imposed 50 percent tariffs on a range of Canadian goods, Mr. Ford told The Associated Press that Ontario could cut power to its American customers.
“We power 1.5 million homes and businesses,” Mr. Ford said, according to Patch. “Everything’s on the table. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
He also told reporters that day, iPolitics reported, that he would hold off for now on reviving the 25 percent export surcharge he imposed on Michigan, Minnesota and New York earlier in the trade war and dropped after one day. “That electricity surcharge is gonna be on the table,” he said. “I don’t want to escalate it anymore, but we need to fight back.”
President Donald Trump answered the same afternoon on Truth Social, writing in part that “much of the Electricity, Oil, and Gas that Canada gets is transported through the U.S.A.,” according to iPolitics.
Grid operator calls it ‘normal system planning’
The IESO, which runs Ontario’s grid at arm’s length from the government, told CBC that Ontario remains a “net-exporter of power” and is exporting seven times more electricity to its neighbors, including Quebec and New York, than it imported in 2025. It described the Alpha Generation contract as part of “normal system planning” to cover maintenance and winter peaks. The province referred CBC’s questions to the IESO.
The IESO did not name the facilities going offline. CBC noted that Ontario began a multi-year refurbishment of four reactors at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station in September. The operator also raised its targets for the coming capacity auction, from 1,800 to 2,000 megawatts for summer 2027 and from 1,200 to 1,400 megawatts for winter 2027-28.
Lewis Krashinsky, a Harvard postdoctoral fellow who studies U.S.-Canada politics, told CBC the contract undercuts the premier’s leverage. “For all the tough talk, I think it doesn’t look at all that good for Doug Ford,” he said. “The best [Ford] can hope for is that this story doesn’t hit too many American outlets.”
Keith Brooks of Environmental Defence Canada blamed the province’s energy choices. “The government has mismanaged this file,” he told CBC. “The reality is we’ve been burning more and more gas in Ontario because we haven’t been building clean energy.” He called Mr. Ford’s threats “idle,” since the United States supplies most of the natural gas Ontario burns for power.
What it means on this side of the river
For Western New York, the deal is a reminder of how tightly the two grids are bound together, whatever the politicians say. Power flows both ways across the border depending on the season, the price and which plants are down for repairs. A cutoff threat from Queen’s Park, or a cancellation threat from Washington, could leave both sides worse off on the coldest nights.
Questions that remain unanswered: which New York plant or plants will back the 600-megawatt commitment, what Ontario ratepayers will pay for it, whether oil-fired Oswego is part of the supply, and whether the contract changes the premier’s calculation the next time the trade war escalates. The IESO has said any further purchases “will continue to be disclosed.”
Featured image: Ontario’s Sir Adam Beck generating stations (left) and the New York Power Authority’s Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant (right) face each other across the Niagara River below the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge. Photo by Mr. Matté via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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