Independent power producers who, with the green-lighting of Site C dam, fled B.C. a decade ago to focus on wind and solar power development in Alberta may want to turn their attention to back to B.C., now that BC Hydro has once again issued a request for clean power proposals.
Drought is cyclical, he said, and by the end of this year, B.C. will have a brand new hydro-electric dam generating enough power to supply 500,000 homes with power. And at the time, there were some sound arguments to be made that the new dam would produce a major surplus of power. Industrial power demand was in decline, due to a declining forestry sector. Pulp mills are power pigs, and several pulp mill closures meant the loss of significant industrial customers.
When Site C comes online at the end of this year, it will have a generating capacity of 1,100 MW, or 5,100 GWh. BC Hydro recently issued a new call for power to acquire another 3,000 GWh of clean power, mostly through wind and solar, which would provide enough power to supply 270,000 homes. BC Hydro plans to spend $36 billion over the next few years, with a significant amount of that investment going to transmission and distribution, including new substations in the Lower Mainland.