Toronto's famous wind turbine is working again

After two years of sitting at a standstill, the blades of the massive wind turbine at the Exhibition Place are spinning once more. 

The 299-foot-tall white windmill known as the Toronto WindShare ExPlace turbine started generating energy again on Friday afternoon.

The #Toronto wind turbine near Exhibition Place is running again 📹 Jonathan Careless pic.twitter.com/fgAS5OTJwf

— blogTO (@blogTO) February 22, 2019

As the first windmill to be installed in a major North American city, the ExPlace turbine added an average of 1,000 MWH of electricity (enough to power 100 homes per year, according to the site) to Toronto's power grid until it stopped in March 2017. 

Its operators, Toronto Hydro Energy Services and WindShare (the TREC-owned wind power co-op), had to shut the turbine down for maintenance after a rainstorm caused damage to the tower's ring generator. 

It was meant to re-open later that year, but despite the wait, these upgrades will hopefully extend the turbine's lifespan by an extra 10 years.