B.C. Hydro says it will spend $50 million to upgrade the Valemount substation if independent power project owners join forces with the utility to pursue a larger goal of developing a new transmission line for the Robson Valley.
The announcement this week came as welcome news to Duke Peterson of Holmes River Hydro Inc., one of three project proponents Hydro will be talking to. The others are ecoTech Energy Group Inc. and Snowshoe Power Inc.
Hydro vice president of energy planning Doug Little said Hydro hopes to have an agreement in place by the end of this year, but Peterson said he is aiming for the next month-and-a-half.
"I'm very anxious to get it done," he said.
The existing line is now at maximum capacity and a new 138 kilovolt line, stretching 85 kilometres from Valemount to McBride, would have to be built to accept the power the three producers would provide.
Peterson said the producers' contribution to the work would be either cash or in-kind, saying they're hoping to build the line. Communities along the line would also benefit, he said, in the form of access to the additional power needed to establish more industry.
The Holmes River project is a run-of-river project 70 kilometres northwest of Valemount that would entail establishing 11 generation sites on tributaries flowing into the river, enough to generate 85 megawatts. Peterson did not provide a cost but said it would employ 60 people during construction and eight once operating.
Seattle-based ecoTech is planning a five-megawatt combined heat and power station that would burn primarily wood pellets and would anchor an "eco-industrial park" at the old Lamming Mills townsite 10 km west of McBride.
In April, the company said it reached a five-year $61.3-million deal to supply the Overwaitea Food Group supermarket chain with food grown at the site once in operation. The company aims to start operations in three years and claims it will have the capacity to grow $50 million worth of food each year at full capacity.
Snowshoe Power Inc. is planning a 1.2 megawatt run-of-river project on McIntosh Creek near McBride.
Four small producers in the Robson Valley are providing power and a Grand Forks company, Castle Mountain Hydro Ltd. has secured a purchase agreement for a six megawatt project on a tributary of Castle Creek, about 25 kilometres south of McBride.
Castle Mountain president John Wheeler said the permitting process has taken longer than expected for the $15-million project but expects to have everything in place fairly soon.
The existing line is at its maximum capacity and the region experiences more frequent outages than the provincial average, although Little said the problem has been offset with additional vegetation management and installation of biodiesel generators in McBride in fall 2010.
"It's still not as great as we would like but it has resulted in significant reliability benefits," Little said.
