New president and CEO of Atura Power has roots in Stratford and St. Marys

With roots in both Stratford and St. Marys, Tom Patterson was recently appointed president and CEO of Ontario Power Generation subsidiary Atura Power.

Appointed earlier in January, the new president and CEO of Atura Power, a subsidiary of Ontario Power Generation (OPG) that operates Ontario's largest fleet of combined cycle gas turbine powerplants, has roots in Stratford and St. Marys.

Tom Patterson, who was born in St. Marys and grew up in Stratford, attending school at King Lear Sr. Public School and Stratford Central Secondary School, was appointed president and CEO on Jan. 13 as previous president and CEO Shelley Babin returned to Ontario Power Generation to serve as chief operating officer.

“It was offered to me,” Patterson said about why he took the job. “What occurred at OPG is the CEO of OPG, Ken Hartwick, retired late last year. That led to Nicolle Butcher becoming CEO, which then led to Shelley Babin, who is my former boss, becoming chief operating officer, which created space for this opportunity. I was given the opportunity by the executive of OPG to take on this position and to run the subsidiary.

“Call it succession planning in action.”

A mechanical engineer, Patterson started his career more than 25 years ago working for TC Energy. After moving to Atura Power, he led the company’s energy markets, electricity growth, finance and corporate-service teams.

“I came over, effectively, from Trans Canada Pipelines, or TC Energy now,” Patterson said. “So, I worked 20 years with them and I developed a wealth of experience in the areas of powerplant engineering, business development, I’ve supported mergers and acquisition, I’ve done commercial operations.

“I brought that to the table when OPG acquired assets from TC Energy back in 2020, and then since that time, I’ve really set up the commercial strategies to operate the business, managed all of the commercial affairs for the business, for the last six months, I’ve taken on the CFO function which includes our finance, IT, corporate services including HR and supply chain, and then I’ve really worked very diligently on managing the relationship with the parent company. … I bring a host of external relationships to the table from my 25 years of experience in the energy sector.”

Ontario Power Generation is owned by the Province of Ontario and is responsible for producing power for ratepayers in Ontario. While Ontario Power Generation is mostly focused on producing hydro-electric and nuclear power, it has also diversified it power-generation capabilities by creating subsidiary companies that generate power in other ways.

As one of those subsidiaries, Atura Power was initially established to operate combined cycle natural-gas turbine powerplants but has since expanded into the clean-fuel sector with the production of hydrogen, as well as, more recently, the development of battery energy storage and a gas-expansion facility at its Napanee generating station. Currently, the company operates four natural-gas plants in Napanee, downtown Toronto, Halton Hills and in Brighton Beach near Windsor.

As part of his new role, Patterson will oversee an ambitious growth plan that will expand Atura’s gas-generation capacity, and develop low-carbon hydrogen production, energy storage and renewable-generation facilities to help build the bridge to a cleaner-energy future.

“Right now, we’ve got about a billion and half dollars of new investment that is in flight, and these are approved projects … in the areas of battery storage, new natural-gas-generation facilities, as well as green hydrogen,” Patterson said. “We’ll be producing hydrogen at the Niagara Sir Adam Beck facility, which is a hydro facility – the big hydro plant at Niagara Falls owned by OPG. We’re taking, effectively, excess energy from that facility when it’s otherwise not used for power generation … and converting it to hydrogen, which is effectively completely green hydrogen. And then that hydrogen can be used to sort of decarbonize things like the transportation sector and other hard-to-decarbonize sectors as we look to a cleaner future in, say, the 2050 timeframe.

“It’s part of our platform to … effectively green up the energy sector. Those are locked-in investments … and then we have ambition to further attract new business in the areas of capacity as well as energy. Capacity could be batteries, could be more natural gas, and the on the energy side, we’re looking at renewables including wind and solar.”

Patterson’s parents, John and Nancy Patterson, still live in Stratford and he says he still has many friends who live in the Festival City, giving him plenty of reason to visit regularly. Currently, Tom Patterson lives in Toronto with his wife, Dr. Wendy Martin, and their two children, Gregory and Meredith.