Recognition a bit of a shock
WINNERS: Kingston Hydro wins environmental excellence award
Posted 1 year ago
Kingston Hydrohas been honoured for a slew of ground-breaking "green" initiatives by the association that represents electrical utilities throughout Ontario.
Jim Keech,president and CEO of Kingston Hydro and Utilities Kingston, said it's the first time in his nearly three decades with the city that the utility has won an award.
"I can't even recall us being seriously considered," Keech said.
Keech accepted the Electricity Distributors Association's Environmental Excellence Award on behalf of Kingston Hydro at the association's annual meeting and awards gala on March 9. Nancy Taylor,vice-president of Kingston Hydro, and MPPJohn Gerretsen,Ontario's environment minister, were also on hand for the presentation.
Kingston Hydro was honoured for a number of reasons:
* Developing metering, protection and financial settlement protocols for a wide range of renewable and low-impact electricity generation installations.
* Connecting 10 solar and wind power facilities and one large natural gas combined heat and power plant.
* Developing and delivering the province's first "distributed generation safety for electricity linepersons" training course.
* Reducing Kingston Hydro's monthly distribution system peak demand by an average of 4.5%.
* Keeping more than $3 million within the Kingston economy through the sale of locally generated electricity to Kingston Hydro.
* Reducing greenhouse gas emissions equal to taking 1,400 mid-sized vehicles off the road.
* Providing 15,060 kilowatts of renewable or low-impact electrical generation to Kingston, representing an investment of $25 million.
Keech said the fact that the current city council has made the environment a priority makes the award extra special.
He's also proud of the fact that Kingston Hydro was chiefly honoured for "paving the way for others in the community to do things."
"We've been told our process is the simplest in the province," he said. "It's neat to have won the award because of the way you are helping others.
"If you went back five years and talked to the local industry, the feedback you would get is that we weren't that helpful, we weren't that interested and it was difficult doing business with us, and I'd say that was justified."
Kingston Hydro provides electricity to 26,000 customers in central Kingston through Utilities Kingston. It also owns and maintains poles, wires, transformers and other equipment.
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A 28-year-old student from Queen's University won $1,000 -- and the chance to earn 10 times that amount -- by playing table tennis almost non-stop at The Stride Gum Ridiculously Long Lasting Ping Pong Playoffs at Queen's last week.
Jeremy De Chavezwon the playoff to become Kingston's regional winner. In addition to the cash prize, he gets to compete in the Stride Gum Ridiculously Long Lasting Championship on Thursday in Toronto. The winner of that competition receives $10,000 in prize money.
Based in Parsippany, N. J., the gum company has held tournaments at eight Canadian universities in the hopes of crowning a marathon ping pong champion.
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A team of students from Students in Free Enterprise at St. Lawrence College has placed first and second in two categories at the ACE Canada Central Competition in Toronto. Together, the students took home $2,500 in prize money.
Team membersJames Vinkle, Andrew Fleck, Michael Graves, Cody Clay, Patrick LaLonde, Darcy Voutt, Spencer Dossett andWesley Duocompeted against teams from 16 universities and colleges.
The Kingston team won the first place prize of $1,500 in the "financial literacy" program and the second prize of $1,000 for the "entrepreneurship" program.
ACE is a national charitable organization that works with businesses and educational institutions. It currently delivers two programs at more than 50 university and college campuses.
The St. Lawrence College team now moves on to the national competition, May 4-6 in Toronto.
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Another Kingston student was also a winner at the ACE competition.
Scott Metherellwas one of three Ontario Student Entrepreneur provincial champions who will compete at the nationals in May. He took home $1,000 cash from the provincial competition.
A Queen's University commerce student, Scott has owned and operated BigRedWorks Inc., a student-run cottage maintenance company that provides services to the island residents in Honey Harbour, Ont. His company employs 15 students who service 450 customers.
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