Great. Thank you, Channa.
OPG is the largest electricity generator in Ontario, providing about a half of the province's power. Our diverse generating fleet includes two nuclear stations, 66 hydroelectric stations, two biomass stations, one thermal station and later this year, one solar facility.
With operations that span the province, OPG's commitment to building long-term, respectful and mutually beneficial relationships with indigenous communities is based on the acknowledgement that our assets are all situated on the traditional territories of indigenous peoples in Ontario.
OPG and its successor companies have generated electricity in Ontario for over a century. However, we also recognize that hydro development over the better part of the 20th century had significant impacts upon many indigenous communities in Ontario. With this understanding, OPG developed a formal voluntary framework to assess and resolve historic grievances largely related to the illegal flooding of reserve lands. Over the past 27 years, OPG has reached grievance settlements with 21 first nation communities through a respectful, non-adversarial and community-driven process. This process has led to some successful equity partnerships. In fact, this spring OPG and Lac Seul First Nation will celebrate the 10-year anniversary of our partnership on the Lac Seul generating station.
The station was completed in 2009, with OPG and Lac Seul forming a historic equity partnership, the first for OPG, in which the first nation is an equity owner in the Lac Seul generating station, a 12-megawatt unit capable of generating enough electricity to meet the yearly demand of 5,000 homes.
Building on that model, in 2016, OPG completed the $2.6-billion Lower Mattagami River project, an equity partnership with the Moose Cree First Nation. This project was completed ahead of time and on budget. Approximately 250 local indigenous people worked on the project. Moreover, Moose Cree benefited from over $300 million in contracting opportunities. Throughout the project, OPG worked closely with Moose Cree and other surrounding communities on a number of employment, environmental and cultural initiatives. These included the development of the Sibi employment and training initiative, which provided a number of client support services to maximize community employment on the project, as well as undertaking traditional ecological knowledge studies. They also included the creation of the Mattagami extensions coordinating committee in collaboration with Moose Cree, Taykwa Tagamou Nation, and MoCreebec to monitor the completion of the terms and conditions of the environmental assessment approvals. As well, they included supporting the development of the dictionary of the Moose Cree.
More recently, in the spring of 2017, OPG completed the Peter Sutherland Sr. generating station, another equity partnership with Taykwa Tagamou Nation. Named after a respected TTN elder, this new $300-million generating station was placed in service on budget and ahead of schedule. Fifty TTN members worked on the project, which employed about 220 individuals at the peak of construction. In addition, approximately $53.5 million in subcontracts were awarded through competitive processes to TTN joint venture businesses during the construction phase of the station.
In May 2016, OPG announced an equity partnership with the Six Nations development corporation to build a solar generation facility at the Nanticoke generating station on Lake Erie. This was formerly a coal-fuelled power station that was retired in 2013.
The Nanticoke solar park will be capable of generating 44 megawatts of clean, renewable power for Ontario when it is placed in service later this year. In 2018, OPG launched the indigenous opportunities in nuclear program, also known as ION, to support the Darlington refurbishment project and to fill the widening skilled trades availability gap. Working in collaboration with Kagita Mikam Aboriginal Employment and Training and the Electrical Power Systems Construction Association, the ION program seeks to recruit qualified indigenous workers and set them on exciting projects such as the Darlington refurbishment project.
Since the program's launch, ION achieved its 2018 targets for successful placements and we are on track for continued success in 2019. From a project development context, we believe these types of partnerships and collaborative relationships with indigenous communities and the mutual benefits they bring can be excellent models for reconciliation and for OPG to demonstrate what providing power with purpose is all about.
Channa.