Toronto city council has for years opposed the continued operation and expansion of the Portlands Energy Centre, a 550-megawatt fossil gas electricity-generating station. It is Toronto’s single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and of nitrogen oxides, a main compenent of smog. The facility is located just south of Lake Shore Boulevard and Leslie Street.
In 2024, city council again again voted to shut it down by 2035 and develop a plan to replace that electricity generation with renewables like wind and solar. But the provincial government is moving ahead with plans to add capacity and extend its life far beyond then.
The question now is whether city council will oppose that effort again and try to find an alternative.
In October, a report on the future of Toronto’s electricity was published by Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO). The plan does not detail a path to closing down the Portlands gas plant by 2035, and it proposes major expansions in nuclear energy instead of wind and solar.
Environmental groups, including the Ontario Clean Air Alliance (OCAA), were alarmed by the report but not entirely surprised.
“The IESO is supposed to be independent,” Angela Bischoff, director of the OCAA, tells The Grind. “But it’s actually a body of the provincial government, and they take their direction from [Ontario Premier] Doug Ford. So they are representing the nuclear and gas interests.”
When the Ford government was elected in 2018, coal-fired electricity generation had been completely phased out, greatly reducing smog. Gas and oil made up only six per cent of electricity generation.
The use of fossil gas for electricity has greatly expanded under Ford’s Conservatives, rising to 17 per cent of Ontario’s electricity generation as of 2024.
Bischoff also warns that the proposed new nuclear facilities would be “the most expensive energy in the world.”
In November, 26 community and environmental groups signed a statement calling on city council to bring forward a motion to reject the IESO report and instead direct Toronto Hydro “to develop an alternative, community-driven clean-energy plan centred on local renewables, energy efficiency and grid modernization, while simultaneously developing a plan to phase out Portlands Energy Centre by 2035.”
As of mid-November, no one at city council had put forward such a motion.
CORRECTION, Nov. 26, 2025: In 2024, Toronto city council voted 20 to four to shut down the Portlands facility by 2035. The original version of this article incorrectly stated it was a unanimous vote. The original version also incorrectly stated the percentage of electricity generated from gas in 2023 at 27 per cent. While gas was available to provide 27 per cent of electricity capacity that year, it actually produced 13 percent of the province’s electricity. The article has been updated with a correct 2024 figure. We regret the errors.
