Do gas turbines work in a Manitoba cold snap?
Sometimes. Brandon's existing turbines start most of the year; the days they fall short are the coldest mornings — exactly the hours the new $3 billion plant is being bought to cover.
What the record shows
Under questioning at the Public Utilities Board, Manitoba Hydro agreed that it had derated the existing Brandon gas turbines during three of the top ten multi-day winter peak events of the past decade PD. The exchange was with K. Elson of the Manitoba Eco-Network and was reported by CBC News on 11 August 2026.
That is not a claim about gas turbines in general, and it is not a prediction about new equipment. It is the operating history of this station, on this grid, in this climate, entered into the record by the utility that runs it.
- Deratings in top-ten winter peak events
- 3 of 10 PD
- Hydro-quoted overall start reliability
- 91% PD
- Proposed Brandon addition, nameplate
- 750 MW PD
- Proposed capital cost
- $3.00B PD
- All-time system peak, 20 Jan 2025 at −32.7 °C
- 5,111.5 MW PD
- Drought-year firm shortfall by 2030
- 600 MW PD
Data sources — registry entries this figure is built from: gas_nameplate_mw, gas_derate_scenario_mw, peak_record_mw
What this does not prove
The 525 MW figure that appears in this filing — a 30% event-informed derate on a 750 MW nameplate — is an assumption A, not a finding, and the registry labels it that way. It is a scenario built to be tested, not a measurement.
Three specific things this page is not claiming:
- Not that new turbines will derate at the same rate. Newer machines and better fuel arrangements may perform differently. Nobody has published the accreditation that would settle it, which is the point.
- Not that gas never starts. Hydro's own quoted overall start reliability is 91% PD. The question is what happens in the tail, on a multi-day cold event, when the gas supply chain is also stressed.
- Not that Manitoba can skip the 600 MW. The 2030 drought-year shortfall is real PD. The argument here is about what to buy, not whether to act.
Why the coldest hours are the whole question
A car that starts 91% of mornings is a good car, unless the mornings it skips are the −32.7 °C ones you bought it for.
Manitoba's grid does not run short of energy over a season — northern reservoirs carry that. It runs short of power for a few hours on the coldest mornings and evenings. Those hours are the tail. Hydro's 91% start reliability is an annual average PD; it blends July into January. A resource that is disproportionately unavailable in the tail is being credited for capacity precisely when it is least able to deliver it.
That is an accreditation question, and it is answerable. It is why the filing's second request to the Board is an independent cold-weather reliability audit applying identical accreditation rules to every resource — gas, batteries, demand response, recovered heat and interties alike. If gas survives that test, it should be built.
Data sources — registry entries this figure is built from: hub_net_electric_mw, bess_mw, dsm_mw
Check it yourself
Every figure on this page resolves from one published registry,
research/assumptions.yaml, and each
carries an evidence class: PD public or utility-board disclosure · C computed
and test-verified · E engineering estimate · A assumption requiring
confirmation. If a number is not in the registry, it should not be trusted; none is.
Open the registry and run the tests → · Found an error? The peer-review register is open.
For journalists and interveners
Take any of this and use it as your own. No credit, no permission, no notification required. Reproduce the charts, quote the figures, or file the argument under your own name. It is more useful in the record than cited on this site.
If you would like to cite it anyway:
Seth, H. (2026). Do gas turbines work in a Manitoba cold snap?
Spirited Energy 2.0. https://www.spirited.energy/cold-snap.html
Underlying disclosure, for direct citation: Manitoba Hydro, under questioning by K. Elson (Manitoba Eco-Network) before the Manitoba Public Utilities Board; reported by CBC News, 11 August 2026.
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Where to go next
The rest of this filing, in the order a stranger tends to need it: what is being proposed, whether it has already been decided, whether the case for it holds, and how to be heard before 4 September 2026.