Nelson, BC – The Chief Administrative Officer, has received the official resignation of the General Manager of Nelson Hydro, Alex Love. Mayor and Council offer their gratitude to Mr. Love for his hard work and many achievements during his 12-year tenure at the City of Nelson and Nelson Hydro. Alex played a critical role in modernizing Nelson Hydro’s infrastructure and moving forward important energy-saving initiatives such as the EcoSave program.

“The list of accomplishments that Alex was able to achieve during his tenure as the GM of Nelson Hydro speak for themselves,” says City Manager Kevin Cormack, “I would like to thank Alex for bringing that entrepreneurial spirit to Nelson Hydro and continuing to look for new innovative opportunities, I wish him best of luck in his new role; we will miss him.”

Some highlights of Alex’s achievements with the Nelson Hydro team include:

• Building a geothermal heating system for the Selkirk College 10^th Street dormitories.
• Design and implemented the City GHG reduction program between 2010 - 2015, which resulted in a 24% reduction in GHG emissions from City operations.
• Voltage conversion in several locations including downtown that removed overhead transformers from the downtown alleyways and replaced with a more compact and reliable hybrid system.
• The rebuild of the Rosemont sub-station to support the voltage conversion in the city and modernize the infrastructure.
• Replacement of all three of marine cable crossings under Kootenay Lake to maintain reliability.
• Overhauls of the electrical and mechanical components of the power plant generators.
• Upgrades to the head-gates and concrete structures of the power plant to assure continued service life of the 100+ year old power plant.
• Implemented EcoSave - an energy efficiency program for Nelson Hydro customers.
• Built Canada’s first community solar garden.
• Active in regulatory processes that resulted in a 25% cost savings on power purchase costs.
• Designed a power purchase structure for Grand Forks to lower costs in that utility.

Alex says, "The greatest enjoyment I got from Nelson Hydro was working with teams to implement projects and programs. Everyone from the trades who built the project, project managers who designed the project, through to Council who provided the strategic support, was a pleasure to work with!"

Alex has accepted the position in the Northwest Territories, and he is looking forward to the unique challenges of power delivery in the far north.

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Media Contact: 

Kevin Cormack, City Manager – kcormack@nelson.ca