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Ontario's $60-billion plan to rebuild its electricity system poses a vast new market for private sector companies that are looking to develop generation and transmission projects throughout North America.

But corporate energy executives worry the power plan will be driven by political promises that are driven by election campaign expediency, and by public unease with the profit-hungry companies supplying electricity, rather than by the long-term needs of the province's energy users.

It's a scenario that is playing out to a varying extent throughout North America as a once publicly owned and publicly managed power sector looks increasingly to the private sector to finance the estimated $1.5-trillion (U.S.) in new generation investment that will be required over the next 25 years.

In Ontario, with a fall election campaign set to kick off this week, the Liberal government is looking to deflect criticism that it broke a 2003 promise to eliminate coal-fired generation in its first term and that it has dragged its feet in approving new power projects.

Last week, the Ontario Power Authority released its 20-year plan for overhauling the province's power system, a plan that is driven by the government's insistence that all coal-fired plants be shut down by 2014 in order to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The authority said such a goal is feasible, but only with major new spending on natural gas-fired generation, renewables and conservation. Over the long term, it said, the province will have to both refurbish existing nuclear reactors and build one or two new ones.

The OPA plan lays out some clear winners and losers: In a sellers' market, companies that build nuclear, natural gas-fired, wind or hydro projects stand to gain, while consumers - including major industrial power users already hard-pressed by a high Canadian dollar and global competitive pressures - worry about sharply escalating prices.

Adam White, president of the Association of Major Power Consumers of Ontario, worries the province's reliance on private power companies and market pricing will drive up costs for industrial users.

Clearly, much of the OPA's $60-billion (Canadian) price tag for new power generation and transmission will be financed by the private sector. Companies, such as Bruce Power in nuclear, TransCanada Corp. and Sithe Global Power LLC in natural gas, and Brookfield Power in wind and hydro, are keen to expand their share of the province's electricity market, while Brookfield even has a proposal to build an underwater transmission line to Toronto.

Duncan Hawthorne, chief executive officer at Bruce Power, the largest independent power generator in Ontario, said the province will likely have to rely on private investors to rebuild the electricity system, given the vast public infrastructure requirements the government must finance.

But Mr. Hawthorne said he is not convinced the province - or the voting public - has come to terms with the corporate need to get a reasonable rate of return on investment, especially when companies take on the operational risks of massive projects.

Earlier this year, the Liberal government came under fire for the long-term power purchase agreement contract signed with Bruce Power in 2005, which the provincial Auditor General said made too many concessions to the firm at the expense of consumers.

"The bottom line is: the province has to decide if they see it as being the public sector's business to do this - both in terms of finding the cash and taking the risk," Mr. Hawthorne said in an interview.

"If they want to invite private sector into this, the companies are going to make choices about whether they want to put their money in this type of project or another one. And if you put the money up, you want an appropriate rate of return," he said.

Bruce Power and the OPA announced last week that it is proceeding with the $1-billion refurbishment of a fourth unit of its Bruce A, on top of the $4-billion project to extend the life of the first three units.

The OPA plan envisions about $26.5-billion being spent between now and 2025 to restore 10,000 megawatts of power.

It also projects roughly $14.4-billion for wind and hydro, much of which will require new transmission lines to bring the power from northern Ontario and the shores of the Great Lakes to markets in the Greater Toronto Area.

Brookfield Power, which operates power generation in Canada, the United States and Brazil, has proposed two separate underwater lines to bring power to Toronto, either from the Niagara Falls region or from Bowmanville, Ont., east of the Toronto.

Ontario's electricity

% of total projected demand

MAGGIE WONG/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

SOURCE: ONTARIO POWER AUTHORITY