or even on a spot market, the returns on these sales increase Manitoba Hydro's retained earnings, allowing domestic rates to be stable and low. Since Manitoba Hydro is a Crown Corporation paying no dividends and not obligated to provide a return on investment to shareholders, energy costs to industrial and residential consumers are lower than they would otherwise be. These lower costs help offset some of the higher costs of doing business in a region far from large markets. As a Provincial Crown Corporation, investment decisions by Manitoba Hydro are heavily influenced by political and economic goals of the provincial government. For example, in the 1986 Manitoba provincial election, the incumbent New Democratic Party government announced accelerated construction of the Limestone project, with promises of increased employment as a result. Limestone GS was estimated to create 6000 person-years of direct employment, 11,000 of indirect employment over the construction period of eight years. As part of the contract for the ten turbine-generator units, Canadian General Electric agreed to invest $10,000,000 CAD in Manitoba business operations, and to obtain at least 15 per cent of installation labour locally. Current activities For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2015, Manitoba Hydro serves a peak Manitoba electrical load of more than 4460 megawatts, down 4.9% from the previous year's peak (2013 year end for comparison in parentheses)(4500 megawatts). Electrical supply to Manitoba customers was 21.6 terawatt-hours in fiscal 2015 (21.5 2013), with total revenue due to electricity of $1.808 billion ($1.733 billion) CAD. Extraprovincial sales were at 10.28 terawatthours ( 9.1 terawatthours), with normal water flows. The company also delivered 2.07 billion cubic metres (2.05 billion) cubic metres of natural gas in 2015, which contributed $573 million CAD to revenues. Manitoba Hydro had 6410 employees at the end of the 2015 fiscal year (6493 in 2013). Capital assets were valued at nearly $13.9 billion CAD. In fiscal 2015 the total generation was 35.0 terawatt-hours (33.2 in fiscal 2013). In 2001 generation was nearly 32.7 terawatt-hours, allowing net export of 12 TW·h to customers in the United States, Ontario and Saskatchewan. A terawatt-hour is the average annual consumption of 70,000 Manitoba residences, 14,100 kW·h per year each. The peak load was 4,535 MW. In fiscal 2015 Manitoba Hydro obtained 0.16% of its total generated electrical energy from fossil fuel at the Brandon and Selkirk thermal generating stations, and 2.38% from wind energy purchased from the